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 < 0.05). 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.