effects of artichoke (cynara scolymus l.) leaf meal and vitamin e on productive performance, intestinal microflora and morphology in japanese quail

a total of 240, one-day-old quail chicks (coturnix coturnix japonica) were used to study the effects of artichoke leaf meal (alm) and vitamin e in diet on growth performance, ileal microbial populations and intestinal morphology in a 42-d trial. this experiment was performed as a completely randomized design with 4 replicates of 15 quails each, using a 4 × 2 factorial arrangement with diet and gender as the main effects. four dietary treatments were formulated by addition of 2 levels (1.5 and 3 percent) of alm and 300 mg/kg vitamin e to the basal diet. supplementing basal diet with alm did not improve growth performance at different rearing periods, whereas dietary vitamin e increased feed intake and body weight gain at day 21 of age (p). the ileal populations of lactobacillus and coliforms was not affected by dietary alm treatments, whereas vitamin e increased the population of total aerobic bacteria (p≤0.04). the ileal villus height (p≤0.01) and crypt depth (p≤0.008) were reduced in quails fed on diets with alm and vitamin e. the quails fed diets containing 3 percent alm and 300 mg/kg vitamin e had higher villus height:crypt depth ratio. the thickness of muscularies (p≤0.04) and mucosa (p≤0.0007) layers were decreased in birds fed diets containing alm than control birds. birds treated with alm and vitamin e showed a shorter intestinal length (p≤0.02) and a lower pancereas relative weight. the results of this study showed that supplementing diet by alm (1.5 and 3%) and 300 mg/kg vitamin e did not improve growth performance, ileal microbiota pupolations and intestinal morphometric indices in japanese quail.