Effects of the Dietary Inclusion of Lentil Byproducts on the Performance, Internal Organs Weight and Carcass Yield of Growing Quails

Day-old quails (240; Coturnix coturnix japonica) were randomly divided into 4 treatments, each with 4 replicate viz., control, 10%, 15% and 20% lentil byproducts, fed to the quails between 1 to 35 days of age. Water and feed were supplied ad libitum. A 24 h/day light was provided. At the end of the experimental period, 24 quails (i.e. 12 males, 12 females) of similar bodyweight were selected from treatment groups, weighed and slaughtered in order to calculate the internal organs weight and carcass rate. The lentil byproducts and diets were analysed for crude protein, starch, dry matter, sucrose, crude ash and ether extract and according to method of VDLUFA (Naumann and Bassler, 1993)

The nutritional compositions of the lentil byproducts are presented in Table I. The nutritional composition and ingredients of the experimental diets are presented in Supplementary Table SI. Data were analysed using the general linear model with the SPSS 12.00 statistical software (SPSS Ltd., Woking, Surrey, UK). The significant differences among treatments were separated by Duncan’s Multiple Range test at α = 0.05 levels. The experiment protocol was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (Permission No. 2014/11. 77.637.437).

The effects of the dietary inclusion of lentil byproducts on the feed consumption, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and body weight of quails up to the 35th days of age are presented in Table I. The inclusion of up to 20% lentil byproducts in quail diets had no adverse effects on the body weight, feed consumption and FCR of the quails, both from 1 to 21 and from 1 to 35 days of age (P > 0.05).

The relative weights of the carcass and of the pancreas, proventriculus, liver, gizzard, and small intestine relative weights, as well as the length of the small intestine, are presented in Table II. The percentages of the liver, gizzard, proventriculus, carcass, small intestine and small intestine length were not significantly affected by the dietary inclusion of lentil byproducts (P > 0.05). On the other hand, the dietary inclusion of lentil byproducts affected the weight and rate of the pancreas, where the relative weights of the pancreas was significantly increased with the inclusion of 20% lentil byproducts compared with the 10%, 15% and control levels (P < 0.05). Mortality was not affected by the dietary inclusion of lentil byproducts. The mortality rates were 1.67%, 0 %, 0% and 1.67% for control and the 10%, 15% and 20% dietary treatment groups, respectively.

Table I.- Effect of lentil byproduct on body weight (g), feed consumption (g) and the feed conversion ratio (g feed/g gain) of the quail.

Chemical analysis of lentil by product: dry matter - 88.20%, crude protein - 25.42%, ether extract - 2.19%, crude fiber - 3.48%, crude ash - 6.11%, starch - 42.9%, sucrose - 3.12%, condensed tannin (g/kg, dry matter)- 4.41, metabolisable energy (MJ/kg) - 12.27.

Table II.- Effect of lentil by product on relative weight (% body weight) of some internal organs of quails at 35 day of age.

a and b, means within the same row with no common superscript differ significantly (P<0.05).

In general, the dietary inclusion of lentil byproducts up to 20% did not affect the body weight of quails at 21 and 35 days. Similar finding were reported by Ayasan et al. (2018) who demonstrated that the inclusion of lentils in broilers’ diet did not affect their body weight, and by Sögüt et al. (2018) who noted that the dietary inclusion of lentils at a 20% level did not affect the body weight of turkeys. Contrary to our results, a negative effect on the body weight of quails was found with the dietary inclusion of more than 20% lentil byproducts (Kanat, 1992). Furthermore, Kanat and Camcı (1993) noted that the inclusion of 20% lentils in diets had a negative effect on the performance of laying hens.

In the present study, the feed consumption and FCR were also not affected by the dietary inclusion of lentil byproducts. This is in agree with the results reported by Ciurescu et al. (2017) who reported that the inclusion of lentil byproducts in the diet of broilers did not affect the feed consumption or FCR. Besides, the results of our experiment are similar to those obtained by Çabuk et al. (2014) and Ayasan et al. (2018). Furthermore, Yalcın et al. (1991) reported that the inclusion of lentil byproducts in diets had no adverse effects on the feed consumption and FCR in poultry. In contrast with our results, Sögüt et al. (2018) showed that the inclusion of more than 20% lentil byproducts in the diet of turkeys worsened the FCR.

With regard to the relative weight of the carcass and digestive organs, similar findings were reported by Sögüt et al. (2018) who found that, in turkeys, the carcass traits and digestive organs’ weight were not affected by the dietary inclusion of lentil byproducts. Our findings were also consistent with those of Ciurescu et al. (2017) who reported that the inclusion of lentils in the diet of broilers did not affect the weights of the gizzard, pancreas, liver, heart, small intestine and the length of the small intestine. However, our results showed that the relative weight of the pancreas becomes significantly lower (P < 0.05) with the inclusion of 20% lentil byproducts. The results found by Viveros et al. (2001) and Arija et al. (2006) are partially consistent with the present results, as they demonstrated an increase in the relative weight of the liver of birds fed with other legumes, such as chickpeas and kidney beans. The increase in the relative weight of the pancreas, upon the inclusion of 20% lentil byproducts, could have resulted from the presence of anti-nutritive factors such as trypsin inhibitors and tannins.

The results of the our experiment showed that the dietary inclusion of lentil byproducts up to a level of 15% had no adverse effects on the body weight, feed consumption, FCR and relative weight of digestive organs in quails. However, we concluded that lentil byproducts can be used in the diet of growing quails up to a level of 15% and that this amount can reduce the feeding cost by 5%. Nevertheless, lentil byproducts need to be studied with other poultry species in detail.

There is supplementary material associated with this article. Access the material online at: https://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.pjz/20190107180141

The authors have declared no conflict of interests.