Consequences of supplementing duck's diet with charcoal on carcass criteria, meat quality, nutritional composition, and bacterial load

The influence of charcoal as feed addi-tives on carcass and meat characteristics was studied in 144 four weeks old Muller ducks. The experimental ducklings were assigned to six groups of 24 birds (Eight per replicates each). The dietary treatments contained 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5% charcoal for G1 (C), G2 (L1), G3 (L2), G4 (L3), G5 (L4) and G6 (L5), respec-tively. All experimental birds were raised under similar environmental and managerial conditions. Results indi-cated that charcoal did not affect most carcass traits significantly except for dressing percentage was higher (P < 0.05) in 1.5 and 2 % charcoal included ducks diets compared to control ducks. Charcoal supplementation significantly affected duck meat tenderness, juiciness and water holding capacity. Moreover, charcoal altered (P < 0.05) meat components such as crude protein, cal-cium components, desirable fatty acids, nutritional value and some bacterial counts. Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances reduced in birds fed charcoal at 1.5, 2, and 2.5%, with significant variation among treat-ments. No significant differences in the number of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were detected among the ducks fed with charcoal and the con-trol group. It could be concluded that charcoal could be included in ducks' diets at 1.5 and 2% with beneficial effects on carcass parameters.