Effect of Enrichment of Laying Quail Diets with Organic Selenium on Performance and Fresh and Stored Egg Quality

Selenium, which is a good antioxidant, is an essential trace mineral and its organic forms are more available than inorganic. Dietary deficiency or excess of this trace mineral causes health problems in poultry, and, therefore, the amount of selenium in the diet is controversial. The current research was carried out to determine the effect of diets enriched with organic selenium on the performance, egg quality, and stored egg properties in laying quails. A total of 120 laying quails were arranged according to a completely randomized design into six treatment groups having five replicates of four birds each. Quails were fed for 70 days with experimental diet containing 0.12 mg/kg selenium based on corn-soybean meal enriched with the addition of organic selenium(Sel-Plex) at 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, or 1.0 mg/kg.Body weight change decreased linearly with the addition of 0.6 mg/kg and further levels of organic selenium (p=0.033). Feed intake quadratically increased with the supplementation of organic selenium up to 0.8 mg/kg, but it was minimum at 1.0 mg/kg (p=0.013). The eggshell quality parameters were not affected by the administration of organic selenium to the diet (p>0.05). Albumen pH linearly decreased with organic selenium supplementation up to the level of 0.60 mg/kg, but increased with the addition of higher levels of organic selenium (p=0.031). With the addition of organic selenium to the diet, yolk L* (p=0.001) and b* (p=0.008) values quadratically and linearly decreased respectively, while a* value increased linearly (p=0.007). Albumen pH value of stored eggs was linearly decreased by treatments (p<0.001), but other parameters was not affected (p>0.05). As a result, it was determined that laying quails can be fed with diets enriched with organic selenium up to 0.4 mg/kg and the eggs could maintain their freshness for a longer time in during storage.