Impact of Biochar and Organic Acid-Enriched Diet on Growth
Performance and Intestinal Histomorphometry in Japanese Quail (Coturnix
coturnix japonica)
Muhammad Usman1,2*, Anas Sarwar Qureshi2*,
Rehmat Ullah Shahid2 and Farrah Deeba3
1Faculty
of Veterinary Sciences, Bahauddin
Zakariya University, Multan, 60000, Pakistan.2Department
of Anatomy, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan.3Department
of Clinical medicine and surgery, University of Agriculture,
Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan
The current study aimed to assess the potential effects of biochar and propionic
acid on production performance, and intestinal histomorphometry in Japanese
quails. For this purpose, a completely randomized design randomly assigned 300,
day-old birds to four treatment groups (T1, T2, T3, and T4). The T1 group
received a basal diet and served as the control group while the T2 group
received diet supplemented withcorn cob
biochar (@2%), T3 group diet was supplemented with corn cob biochar (@1.5%) and
propionic acid (@0.5%), and the T4 group was offered propionic acid (@0.5%) only
for six weeks. The weekly weight gain, feed intake, and FCR were recorded during
the trial.
At the completion of the trial, birds were euthanized humanely, and the
intestine was collected and processed for the morphological parameters (weight,
length, width). Statistical analysis revealed that significant (P<0.05)
variations were observed in body weight gain, feed intake, and FCR among the
treatment groups supplemented with biochar and organic acids compared to the
control. Histomorphometric analysis revealed significant (P<0.05) improvements
in villus height, villus width, crypt depth, villus height to crypt depth ratio,
villus surface area, and thickness of tunica muscularis and externa in all
experimental groups compared to the basal diet group. It has been concluded that
biochar and propionic acid has the potential to be used as growth promoters,
leading to improved growth performance and gut morphometry in Japanese quails.
To Cite This Article:
Usman M, Qureshi AS, Shahid RU and Deeba F, 2025. Impact of Biochar and Organic
Acid-Enriched Diet on Growth Performance and Intestinal Histomorphometry in
Japanese Quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica). Pak Vet J.
http://dx.doi.org/10.29261/pakvetj/2025.127