Moringaringa oleifera and Calliandra calothyrsus leaf powder as feed supplement in the diet of laying Japanese quails

Ly Thi Thu Lan¹, Nguyen Trong Ngu², Lam Thai Hung¹, Le Vinh Nguyen Han³ and Nguyen Thi Hong Nhan²

¹ School of Agriculture and Aquaculture, Tra Vinh University, 126 Nguyen Thien Thanh, Tra Vinh City, Tra Vinh Province, Vietnam
nthnhan@ctu.edu.vn
² College of Agriculture, Can Tho University, 3/2 Street, Can Tho City, Vietnam
³ Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sub-department of Tien Giang, 133 Ly Thuong Kiet, My Tho City, Tien Giang Province, Vietnam

Abstract

Japanese quails (n=360) of 42 days old were allocated into a completely randomized design with 3 treatments and 4 replicates to evaluate the effect of Moringa oleifera (Moringa) and Calliandra calothyrsus (Caliandra) leaf powder supplements in the diets. The treatments were a supplement of 5% Moringa or 5% Caliandra leaf powder in the diet.

Egg production, feed intake and feed conversion were not affected by either Moringa or Caliandra supplementation. Parameters for external and internal egg quality were similar with the exception for yolk color, for which 5% Moringa or 5% Caliandra inclusion improved the color from 4.23 to 8.58 and 8.41, respectively. It is concluded that supplementation of Moringa and Calliandra leaf powder at 5% has no effects on performance of laying quails but remarkably enhances yolk color.

Keywords: egg quality, egg production, yolk pigmentation

Introduction

Rearing quails has become increasingly popular due to many advantages such as the ease of rearing, only requiring a small area and low initial costs (Kumari et al 2008). Japanese quails grow fast with short generation times and a high yield of eggs. A female quail can lay up to 280-300 eggs per year under good conditions (Sezer 2007). In addition to selecting the breed and rearing techniques, feed accounts for over 72% of production costs and it greatly affects the egg quality (Kakengi et al 2007). The selection of food resources to ensure the egg productivity and quality is therefore of importance. One of the measures to achieve that is to add ingredients of natural origin. Moringaringa oleifera (MO) is a native tree in the Himalayas but it is currently spread almost worldwide (Kakengi et al 2007). This is a new source of diet additives with high nutritional values from vitamins (A, B and C) and minerals (calcium, iron, phosphorus) and protein (Murro et al 2003). Moringa is reported to provide 7 times more vitamin C than oranges, 4 times more vitamin A than carrots, 17 times more calcium than milk, 25 times more iron than spinach, 15 times more potassium than bananas, and 9 times more protein than yogurt (Rockwood et al 2013). Moreover, potentially toxic heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, and cadmium are absent from the leaves of Moringa, rendering it safe to have Moringa leaf meal added into feed for poultry (Donkor et al 2013). In Vietnam, the Moringa tree is easy to grow and the leaves contain about 25.5% crude protein (Manh et al 2005). Calliandra calothyrsus (CC) is a leguminous tree species and the leaves have a high protein content. It was reported that Caliandra leaves contain 22.0% crude protein, 30-70% fiber, 2-3% fat, 4-5% ash and no toxic substances (Wiersum and Rika 1992). A study on laying hens showed that the addition of 10% Caliandra leaf powder increased yolk pigmentation (Paterson et al 2000). Supportedly, Laksmiwati and Siti (2012) also found that with 10% Caliandra leaf powder in the diets of ducks it helped increase yolk pigmentation and egg quality. However, little information is available on the supplementation with these two sources of leaf powder in diets of laying quails. The present study was undertaken to determine the potential beneficial effects of Moringa and Caliandra for egg production and egg quality traits in Japanese quails.

Materials and methods

Experimental design

A total of 360 Japanese quails (42 days old) were allotted to a completely randomized design with 3 treatments and 4 replicates each of 30 quails. The treatments (Table 1) were: control (Ctrl) as basal diet, MO5: basal diet plus 5% Moringa leaf powder and CC5: basal diet plus 5% Caliandra leaf powder. All birds were raised in the same conditions, with drinking water and feed supplied ad libitum.

Diets and chemical composition of the leaf powder

The quantities of the ingredients are presented in Table 1. Both Moringa and Caliandra leaf powder were produced by collecting leaves (in Tra Vinh province) and being dried in a shady area for approximately 4 hours. The dried Moringa and Caliandra leaves were then ground by a blender to a powder (Figure 1). The nutrient composition of Moringa and Caliandra leaf powder are in Table 2.

Figure 1. Fresh leaves and leaf powder of (a) Moringa oleifera and (b) Calliandra calothyrsus

Data collection

The data were collected and evaluated when the egg laying rate reached 10%. Eggs were collected and counted at 5:00 p.m. daily for each treatment. Egg productivity was calculated as the total number of eggs laid per week. The leftover feed from the previous day and new feed were weighed daily at 4:00 p.m. with cumulative calculation at the weekend to calculate the feed conversion. The data were collected every 2 weeks for egg shape index, egg weight, egg yolk color, yolk weight, albumen weight, egg shell weight, yolk proportion, albumen proportion and shell proportion.

Egg quality determination

Egg quality analysis was performed by collecting 5 sample eggs from each replicated group. The length and width of the eggs were measured by caliper-square to calculate the shape index. The collected eggs were marked, weighed and then cracked to weigh yolk, albumin, and shell. These samples were then used to assess egg yolk color, and to calculate yolk, albumin, shell index and ratio. Yolk color was determined using a Roche color fan.

Statistical analysis

All data were analyzed using the GLM procedure of the Minitab software version 16.2.1.

Results and discussion

Egg production, feed intake and feed conversion

Supplementation with MO or CC leaf powder did not affect egg production, feed intake and feed conversion (Table 3). The present study confirmed the findings of Aguayo et al (2017) that either 5% or 10% of Moringa leaf meal had no influence on intake and feed efficiency of quails during first 8 weeks of the laying cycle. However, in another report by Shata et al (2018), the partial replacement of soybean meal by Moringa seed meal resulted in better feed consumption and feed conversion. In laying hens, Kaijage et al (2015) concluded that the addition of 5% Moringa resulted in better egg yield whereas inclusion of Calliandra led to similar egg productivity but increased feed intake when the inclusion level increased from 5% to 7.5% and 10% (Paterson et al 2000). Recently, the report of Juarsa et al (2018) showed that a 5% solution Moringaringa leaf into drinking water resulted in improved egg production and feed intake.

Egg quality parameters

Of the external and internal egg quality traits, only yolk color was shown to be different among diets (Table 4). Limited data were found on egg parameters of quails supplemented with either Moringa or Caliandra; however, in laying hens an improved egg weight was recorded when 5% Moringa was included in the diets (Olugbemi et al 2010). On the contrary, Paterson et al (2000) found that with 5% Caliandra leaf powder to the diets of laying hens, there was no difference in the weight of the eggs. Aguayo et al (2017) reported lower egg weight in quails supplemented with 5% and 10% Moringaringa leaf meal. Thus, the effect of Moringa addition on egg weight is not clear. It was stated that the proportion of eggshell increased with the increased level of Moringa in the diet of laying quails (Aguayo et al 2017); however in our report, eggshell ratio was similar among Moringa and Caliandra treatments. In terms of yolk weight and yolk proportion, the present results were consistent with those reported by Olugbemi et al (2010) that no differences were found when supplemnting Moringa at levels of 0%, 5%, 10% for laying hens.

Yolk color was highly enhanced in the Moringa and Caliandra treatment. The present findings support the conclusion of Aguayo et al (2017) that including Moringa leaf meal in quail diets up to 10% positively influences pigmentation of egg yolk.

In laying hens fed a diet with Moringa fresh leaf supplement, egg yolk color was enhanced to 13% (Moringahammed et al 2012). Previously, Paterson et al (2000) also showed that yolk color increased to 11.0 when 10% Caliandra powder was supplemented in the diet of laying hens. Yolk color is one of the most important criteria affecting the quality of eggs (Hasin et al 2006) and the enhanced yolk color caused by the effects of xanthophyll and carotene in the Moringa treatment diets is a trait favored by most consumers (Akande et al 2008).

Conclusions

• The addition of 5% Moringa leaf powder or 5% Caliandra leaf powder to the diets of laying quails led to an increased pigmentation in egg yolk color but had no effect on the weights of eggs, yolk, shell and albumin; nor on shell, yolk and albumin proportion.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 106-NN.05-2013.12.

References

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Received 7 June 2019; Accepted 26 June 2019; Published 2 July 2019

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