Inclusão de óleos funcionais de pracaxi e copaíba em dietas de codornas japonesas

Abstract

This dissertation consists of two chapters. Chapter I describes the first stage of the work, which consisted of carrying out a systematic review of the literature on the use of essential oils (EO) and/or functional oils in quail diets and their impact on performance parameters and egg quality. After a thorough screening, nine articles were identified that fully met the inclusion criteria. EOs were used in association with other EOs in five papers and in the other four papers salty EOs were used, one study used myrtle EO, one study used lavender EO, and one used oregano EO. The authors reported that using EOs improved weight gain and feed conversion, increased productivity, and optimized feed consumption and intestinal morphometry. In terms of egg quality, the main results were an increase in egg weight, an increase in egg mass, greater shell thickness, greater shell weight, greater yolk and albumen weight, an improvement in yolk index, an increase in Haugh Unit, greater yolk and albumen height. Based on these results, we recognize that the use of essential oils had a positive effect on the final characteristics of the eggs and improved the performance of the laying quails. Chapter II hypothesized the possibility of Amazonian functional oils of copaiba and pracaxi acting as substitutes for performance enhancers. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of including Amazonian pracaxi and copaiba functional oils in the diet of Japanese quails as performance enhancers on production parameters, egg quality and the birds' intestinal health, blood biochemical profile, yolk lipids, organ biometry, and digestibility coefficient. To this end, 240 Japanese quails were used for a 56-day experimental period consisting of two 28-day cycles. The animals were divided into a completely randomized experimental design consisting of six treatments, and eight replicates, with five animals per replicate. The treatments consisted of a basal diet plus or without feed additives, as follows: basal diet (negative control); performance enhancer (bacitracin 0.15%, positive control); probiotic (BS gold® 0.033%); pracaxi functional oil (0.090%); copaiba functional oil (0.180%); and a combination of pracaxi oil (0.090%) and copaiba oil (0.180%). The results of the analyses of production performance, yolk lipid profile, carcass weight, and organ biometry showed that the Amazonian functional oils were able to maintain levels similar to the positive control. Copaiba and pracaxi oils associated with copaiba had lower Haugh Units (HU) than the positive control group, however, they did not differ from the control with probiotic. The other quality parameters did not differ between the positive control and the functional oils. The depth of the duodenal crypts was significantly greater in the group receiving copaiba than in the positive control. In addition, the width of the jejunal villi was greater in the group of birds that received copaiba oil associated with pracaxi compared to the positive control, without differing from the group with probiotic in either variable. Despite these findings, the villus/crypt ratio was similar to the positive control in all groups that received the Amazonian functional oils. Albumin parameters were significantly lower in the pracaxi associated with copaiba groups and in the group that received only copaiba compared to the positive control. Considering the maintenance of the observed parameters, we conclude that the Amazonian functional oils were compatible with the performance enhancers and can be used to replace zinc bacitracin as a performance enhancer.