Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2021, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (7): 1927-1941.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2021.07.015

• ANIMAL NUTRITION AND FEEDS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Chitosan Oligosaccharide Supplementation as an Alternative to Antibiotic on the Growth Performance, Slaughter Performance, Intestinal Barrier Function and Meat Quality of Cherry Valley Ducks

CHEN Zhongwei, WANG Ruixiu, LIU Qiang, LIU Feng, ZHUANG Su*   

  1. Laboratory for Development and Utilization of Feed Resources, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
  • Received:2021-02-19 Online:2021-07-23 Published:2021-07-23

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of dietary chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) as an alternative to antibiotic on the growth performance, slaughter performance, serum biochemical parameters, intestinal barrier function, and meat quality of Cherry Valley ducks. A total of 540 ducks (one day old) were randomly assigned to 3 groups with 6 replicates per group and 30 ducks per replicate. Ducks in the 3 treatments were respectively fed a basal diet (control group), a basal diet added with either 40 mg·kg-1 zinc bacitracin (antibiotic group) or 50 mg·kg-1 COS (COS group) for 42 days. At the end of the experiment, one male duck (close to the average body weight) from each replicate was randomly selected and weighted. Blood, intestinal and muscle samples were collected for determination of serum biochemical indices, intestinal barrier function and muscle quality, respectively. The results showed that:1) Compared with control and antibiotic groups, dietary COS supplementation markedly increased the average daily feed intake (ADFI), average daily gain (ADG) of ducks, and the spleen and thymus indices (P<0.05), whereas no significant effects were found in the slaughter performance (P>0.05). 2) Compared with the control group, the supplementation of COS or antibiotics significantly increased the serum globulin (GLB) content, the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and the total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) of leg muscle (P<0.05), the secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA), and the immunoglobulin M (IgM) in the duodenal mucosa (P<0.05), signifcantly decreased the serum urea nitrogen (BUN) content and the A/G value, the malondialdehyde (MDA) content and the drip loss of leg muscle(P<0.05). 3) Compared with control and antibiotic groups, dietary COS supplementation significantly increased IgM content in jejunal and ileal mucosa (P<0.05), signifcantly decreased diamine oxidase (DAO) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) levels in serum (P<0.05). Compared to the control group, dietary COS supplementation markedly increased the mRNA expression of occludin (OCLN) in the duodenal mucosa (P<0.05) and the redness value (a*) of leg muscle (P<0.05), significantly decreased the serum D-lactic content (P<0.05). In addition, the mRNA expression of OCLN in the jejunal mucosa in antibiotic group was higher than that in control group (P<0.05). The results suggest that the supplementation of COS could increase growth performance, enhance the immunity ability, improve the intestinal barrier function, and meat quality in Cherry Valley ducks. Therefore, COS could be used as an alternative to antibiotics in Cherry Valley ducks production.

Key words: Cherry Valley ducks, growth performance, slaughter performance, serum biochemical indices, intestinal barrier function, meat quality

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