Effect of adding different levels of Lycopene to the diet on some physiological traits for Japanese quail bird exposed to thermal stress

This study was conducted in the field of poultry birds belonging to the Department of Livestock,College of Agriculture, Al-Qasim Green University for the period from 17/10/2014 to 29/11/2014, andthen followed by laboratory work. This research aims to study the best concentrations of Lycopeneadded with diet in reducing the thermal stress exposed to quail birds in the experiment. In theexperiment, a 300 unsexed quail chicks were used, the chicks were raised on ground mattresses, withage of (1-8) and then transferred to pens. Lycopene was added to the diet from the age of 8 days to theage of 42 days. Chicks were randomly distributed into 5 treatments (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5) whichrepresent the addition of lycopene to diets at levels of (0, 150, 200, 250, 300 mg lycopene/kg feed),respectively. The results of the experiment indicated to obtain a significant increase in the H / L ratiofor the birds of the T1 treatments compared to the treatments (T2, T3, T4, T5) while no significantdifferences were recorded between the two treatments (T4, T5) in the same trait. As for the percentageof Packed Cell Volume (PCV) and Haemoglobin (Hb), a significant increase (P˂0.01) was observed inthe percentage of PCV and Hb for the T3 treatment compared to the control treatment, As for the traitof the concentration of glucose and the concentration of triglycerides (g / 100 ml serum) in the serum ofbirds, it was noted the continued superiority of the T4 treatment on all the treatments of the experiment.while the T5 treatment recorded highly significant excelling (P 0.01) in the average concentration ofcholesterol on the rest of the treatments. As for the percentage of total protein, a significant (P˂0.05)excelling was observed for the T5 treatment on the rest of the treatments. As for the concentration ofglobulin, it was observed that there was a significant excelling (P˂0.05) for the T5 treatment on thetreatments of the experiment. We conclude from this study that adding lycopene to quail diets works onincreasing the percentage of the physical traits for the blood and the percentage for some bloodbiochemical traits.