Jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) ameliorates heat stress: impact on growth performance, antioxidant function, carcass traits, and breast meat quality in Japanese quails

Stress in farming arises from factors such as management, nutrition, environmental conditions, and disease. While synthetic antioxidants are employed to mitigate this stress, they pose potential health risks. Consequently, natural ingredients have been proposed as an effective alternative to prevent oxidative stress. This study investigated the effects of jujube supplementation on growth performance, antioxidant function, meat quality, and carcass characteristics of quails. A total of 128 male quails that were 7 days old were randomly divided into four different treatment groups receiving different jujube levels: J0 (basal diet without jujube), J0.5 (0.5% jujube), J1 (1.0% jujube), and J2 (2.0% jujube). Each group consisted of 4 replicates, with 8 quails in each replicate. After dietary jujube supplementation, the findings demonstrated a significant increase in body weight gain in the J1 group relative to the J0 group during the experimental period from days 15 to 43 (P=0.020). In addition, the quails fed jujube showed increased antioxidant stability and decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) production in contrast to the J0 group, with the J2 group showing the most notable effects. Dietary jujube supplementation significantly increased the levels of the antioxidant enzymes catalase (CAT) and glutathione (GPx), peroxidase in quails P =0.001; P =0.028). Furthermore, breast meat pH levels decreased in the jujube-supplemented groups ( P =0.006; P =0.001), and there was no statistically significant difference observed in the quail carcass parameters. These results show that jujube supplementation did not affect growth performance, meat quality, carcass characteristics, and internal organs but could improve serum MDA levels, GPx, and CAT enzyme activity.