The effect of different levels of garlic powder on performance, carcass efficiency and serum metabolites of Japanese quail

This study was done to investigate the effect of different levels of garlic powder on performance, relative weight of carcass components and blood metabolites of Japanese quail. One hundred 21-day male Japanese quails were randomly assigned to 5 treatments, 4 replicates and 5 birds in each replicate. The experimental treatment included: control diet without garlic powder, diets supplemented by 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% and 2% garlic powder. Quails fed for 21 days. Quails access to water and feed freely. Results showed that feed intake, daily weight gain and feed conversion ratio of quails were not affected by different levels of garlic powder. The effect of adding garlic powder to the diet on carcass efficiency, ventricular fat, total cholesterol and low-density-lipoproteins was significant (p <0.05). The birds fed diets containing 1% garlic powder had the highest carcass efficiency and the difference with birds fed diets without herbal medicine supplementation was significant (P <0.05). As increased garlic powder level in the diet, the blood total cholesterol and lipoproteins linearly decreased. According to the results obtained from this experiment, dietary supplementation by 1% garlic powder has a positive effect on carcass efficiency and decline undesirable blood metabolites.