Effects of dietary supplementation of flavonoids from Moringa leaves on growth and laying performance, immunological and antioxidant activities in laying ducks

Abstract

SUMMARY: An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of feeding diets with Moringa flavonoiod meal (MFM) in laying ducks. A total of 225 one-day-old Sansui ducklings were randomly assigned to 3 dietary treatments with 5 replicates of 15 each. The growth performance of duckling, serum biochemical parameters and serum antioxidant index were determined. The egg production experiment was conducted using laying ducks from 23 to 27 wk of age. Both growth trail and egg production trail applied the following dietary treatments: (1) CON, basal diet; (2) basal diet + 0.2% MFM; (3) basal diet + 0.4% MFM. Dietary 0.2% MFM improved FCR and ADG in ducklings during 0 to 4 wk of age (P 0.05).There were the tendencies to increase serum superoxide dismutases and glutathione peroxidase levels whereas decrease serum malondialdehyde concentration in ducklings. Taking together, dietary supplements with MFM improved growth performance of ducklings and egg production of laying ducks, enhanced eggshell strength whereas lightened yolk color. Moringa flavonoiod meal can be used as effective additives in laying duck production.

Keywords

• moringa flavonoiod
• laying performance
• immunological index
• antioxidant activities
• laying duck