A study on dietary calcium and malic acid supplementation: malic acid improved performance, egg quality and tibia parameters in quails fed low-calcium diets

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the effects of malic acid on diets containing different levels of calcium (Ca) on performance, egg quality and tibia characteristics in laying quails. A total of 256 laying quails, 35 weeks old, were randomly distributed into eight experimental groups during the 84-day trial period and were tested in a 2 × 4 factorial design. Each experimental group consisted of eight replicates of four birds each. The experiment had a randomised design consisting of a 2 × 4 factorial arrangement with two levels of Ca (2.0 and 2.5 g/100g diet) and four levels of malic acid (0, 1, 2 and 4 g/kg). Reducing dietary Ca level increased body weight change (BWC) and feed intake (FI) but it decreased eggshell ratio, tibia breaking strength and tibia ash. Egg weight (EW) tended to increase at the 1 g/kg level of dietary malic acid and to decrease at the 4 g/kg level compared to the group without malic acid. Addition of malic acid to the diet at 1 and 4 g/kg levels negatively affected the tibia breaking strength. In conclusion, while the addition of malic acid to diets containing 2.0 g/100g diet Ca tended to improve performance, eggshell quality and tibia characteristics, these parameters were negatively affected by the addition of malic acid (especially 4 g/kg) to diets containing 2.5 g/100g diet Ca in laying quails.