Effect of Mangosteen (Garcinia Mangostana) Pericarp Extract in Reducing the Heat Stress of Laying Quails

The study was investigated the effects of mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) pericarp extract (MCE) dissolved in drinking wateron the heat stress (hot season) of laying quails. A total of 700 laying quails with average initial egg production of 82.38% ± 0.98 were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups. Each group had seven replications of 25 quails for each. The treatment groups included a control group that did not receive mangosteen pericarp crude extract (MCE) supplementation and three groups that received dilution ratios of MCE to water of 1:5 (MCE5), 1:10 (MCE10) and 1:15 (MCE15), respectively. The quails were consumed the different MCE dilutions during summer for 16 weeks. The temperature was ranged from 35 °C to 37 °C. The experimental quails were exposed to chronic heat stress for four hours daily under an open-housed system. The result showed that the feed conversion ratio, yolk color, total cholesterol, and aspartate aminotransferase were unaffected by the MCE treatments (P > 0.05).However, feed consumption, egg production, egg weight, and egg mass were significantly increased by the addition of MCE (P ≤ 0.05). Linear improvements in Haugh unit (P= 0.014), specific gravity (P= 0.089) and eggshell components (P= 0.033) were detected with increasing dilutions of MCE. Heterophil-to-lymphocyte ratios (H/L ratio) also tended to be lower in the quails that received MCE treatment (P= 0.071). Low-density lipoproteins and glucose concentrations decreased, whereas an increase in high-density lipoprotein was detected with the addition of MCE (P ≤ 0.05) increased. We furthermore the fecal microbial populations such as Salmonella enteritidis, Lactobacillus spp. and Escherichia coli were influenced by MCE treatment in the laying quails (P≤0.05). In conclusion, we found that the addition of MCE to drinking water could be an alternative approach to reduce the heat stress effect in laying quails.