EFFECT OF SELENIUM-ENRICHED AZOLLA ON BIOCHEMICAL AND GROWTH PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS IN JAPANESE QUAILS (COTURNIX COTURNIX JAPONICA) BROILERS

Azolla is a fern plant through conducting 27 % of protein content and involves actively in bioremediation. So, this property of this plant is exploited in the production of chelated minerals. In this study, selenium-enriched azolla is evaluated with Japanese quails on the performance of growth and serological parameters. The present study is designed with 525 quails divided into 7 treatments, each with 3 replicates. Each replicate contains 25 birds. The evaluation was done from day-old chick to 5-week age in a deep litter farming system. The birds in each treatment are distributed in a randomized manner irrespective of gender, later grouped into control, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4ppm organic selenium treatments, along with 0.2, 0.3, 0.4ppm inorganic selenium treatments sequentially. The body weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion rate were noted every week and significant changes were recorded. In performance trials we observed that 0.2ppm organic selenium shows good performance in body weight gain (P<0.013) and feed conversion rate (P<0.02) at a significant level. At 0.2ppm concentration of organic selenium, significant levels of increase in albumin (P<0.017), phosphorus (P<0.014) and protein (P<0.013) were observed. After analyzing biochemical parameters, it is concluded that 0.2ppm organic selenium concentration is showing significant growth performance and benefiting certain biochemical parameters in Japanese quails.