Does the provision of live black soldier fly and yellow mealworm larvae improve Muscovy duck welfare?

Table 9 Blood and serum parameters of Muscovy ducks fed live BSF and YM larvae provided at 5% of the expected ADFI

Item	Dietary treatment¹			SEM	P-value
Item	C	BSF	YM	SEM	P-value
Erythrocytes, 10⁶ cells/μL	2.85	2.97	2.77	0.114	0.802
Leukocytes, 10³ cells/μL	10.2	9.61	8.36	0.569	0.418
Heterophils, %	37.7	36.4	35.5	0.898	0.627
Lymphocytes, %	56.0	58.9	59.1	0.959	0.346
Monocytes, %	2.33	2.00	2.00	0.163	0.642
Eosinophils, %	0.769	1.42	1.67	0.167	0.070
Basophils, %	2.00	1.17	1.08	0.197	0.113
H/L	0.717^a	0.585^b	0.573^b	0.026	0.037
Total protein, g/dL	3.50	3.13	3.09	0.164	0.520
Triglycerides, mg/dL	51.7	64.3	49.0	2.76	0.068
Cholesterol, mg/dL	170	153	130	10.2	0.288
AST, U/L	18.2	17.0	16.7	0.983	0.802
ALT, U/L	7.91	7.82	8.08	0.359	0.956
GGT, U/L	4.17	4.50	4.50	0.224	0.789
Uric acid, mg/dL	3.12	2.95	2.69	0.154	0.538
Creatinine, mg/dL	0.078	0.077	0.074	0.003	0.810
Urea, mg/dL	1.04	1.04	0.958	0.065	0.839

ADFI Average daily feed intake, C Control, BSF Black soldier fly, YM Yellow mealworm, SEM Standard error of the mean, H/L Heterophil to lymphocyte ratio, AST Aspartate-aminotransferase, ALT Alanine-aminotransferase, GGT Gamma-glutamyl transferase
¹Three dietary treatments: C: control, commercial feed; BSF: commercial feed + 5% live BSF larvae; YM: commercial feed + 5% live YM larvae
^a,bMeans with superscript letters denote significant differences among treatments (P < 0.05)

ISSN: 2049-1891