Effectiveness of the use of biologically active substances in quail farming

Abstract

The current challenge in industrial poultry farming is to develop feed additives as an alternative to feed antibiotics. Natural plant-based feed additives have been found to have a positive effect on digestion and the overall poultry health. The main advantages of phytobiotic preparations are their naturalness, better assimilation within the animal's body, low toxicity and no side effects. Phytobiotics are also relatively inexpensive because, unlike their expensive synthetic counterparts, the raw materials for their manufacture are more affordable. According to their different characteristics, phytobiotics can be divided into four groups: herbs (flowering, non-wood and short-lived plants), spices (herbs with a strong odour or taste, usually added to human food), essential oils (volatile lipophilic compounds obtained by cold pressing, steam or alcohol distillation) and resins (oleo-resin, extracts obtained by the action of non-aqueous solvents). The purpose of this review was to examine the composition, properties and use of phytobiotic preparations in poultry farming technology based on an analysis of current scientific publications by domestic and foreign authors. The article provides a far from being complete overview of research into the composition, properties and efficacy of phytobiotics in egg and meat poultry farming, geese farming, turkey and quail farming indicating that they are in high demand in these industries. In industrial poultry farming, phytobiotics contribute to increasing the overall resistance of the poultry organism, normalising the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract and increasing egg and meat productivity through better assimilation of feed nutrients. However, it should be noted that the number of herbal products is increasing every year and it is necessary to study in detail their properties and use in poultry farming technology.