Morphometric analysis of small intestine of layer quails influenced by dietary phytogenic feed additives

The effect of supplementation of different phytoadditives on the micrometrical parameters of small intestines of layer quails, 360 birds of the same hatch (6 weeks old) were randomly distributed into eight groups (n=45), having three replicas of fifteen quail layers per replica. These eight dietary groups were: Negative control (NC; maize-soya based diet with no additive), positive control (PC; herbal growth promoter- Reproforte plus™ was supplemented @ 500gm per ton feed), whereas T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6 groups were supplemented with 1% dietary additive namely turmeric, garlic, fenugreek, cumin, aloe vera and oregano powder, respectively. These additives were fed consecutively for 22 weeks. After 22 weeks, it was observed that phytoadditive supplementation had no effect on duodenal villi base width, luminal epithelial height, crypt depth and gland epithelial height were similar among different groups (P>0.05). However, villi length (µm) showed statistically significant difference (P<0.05), being highest for PC (850.0), T2 (867.97), T3 (861.89) and T4 (868.03) groups and was lowest in NC (776.65) group, whereas rest of the groups i.e. T1 (809.97), T5 (808.54) and T6 (809.85) showed intermediate values.While in the jejunum, luminal epithelial height (µm) and gland epithelial height (µm) showed significant changes, whereas rest of the parameters showed no difference. The luminal epithelial height (µm) of jejunum was found significantly higher (P<0.05) in T1 (27.75), T2 (27.90) and T4 (27.58) than NC (24.01), but PC (26.39), T3 (26.11), T5 (26.14) and T6 (25.51) has in values. Likewise, gland epithelial height (µm) was found higher in T4 (14.98) and lowest in NC group (12.31). But in ileum, luminal epithelial height (µm) was found to be higher in T3 (25.09), T4 (25.29), T5 (24.92) and T6 (23.77), but it was lowest in NC group (21.92). However, PC group has intermediate luminal epithelial height (µm) and had no difference with all the groups. Rest all the estimated parameters of the ileum have statistically similar values and showed no difference.