Black soldier fly larvae: a one health approach to investigate gut, and organ health and meat quality response in slow-growing chickens

Table 3 The histopathological evaluation of gut, liver and spleen (score 0–3*), histomorphometry of the jejunum (mm) and the interleukin in blood plasma of an indigenous chicken breed fed a diet supplemented with dehydrated black soldier fly larvae and live black soldier fly larvae over the periods 39–147 and 39–174 days of age (means, n = 12)

	Diet (D)			Age (A)		SEM	p-value
	C	DL	LL	147 d	174 d	SEM	Diet	Age	D x A
Gut and organs histology scores (0–3)
Intestine	1.1	1.1	1.2	1.3	1.2	0.063	0.691	0.194	0.370
Liver	0.4	0.5	0.3	0.4	0.4	0.086	0.551	0.284	0.434
Spleen	0.07	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.027	0.432	0.434	0.271
Gut histomorphometry (mm)
Villus heights	0.811	0.780	0.860	0.747	0.887	0.0243	0.407	0.004	0.855
Villus width	0.095	0.089	0.099	0.095	0.093	0.0053	0.137	0.669	0.405
Villus heights/Crypts depth	15.5	15.8	16.4	14.3	17.4	0.584	0.796	0.008	0.765
Crypts depth	0.054	0.051	0.053	0.053	0.052	0.0025	0.529	0.551	0.604
Mucosae width	1.32	1.31	1.38	1.25	1.43	0.0238	0.484	0.101	0.777
Muscularis layers width	0.223	0.224	0.239	0.218	0.239	0.0164	0.558	0.125	0.021
Villus Area	0.243	0.218	0.266	0.227	0.258	0.0223	0.101	0.090	0.534
Immune markers
IgM (pg/mL)	2254	2308	2065	2171	2247	110.8	0.642	0.728	0.711
IgA (ng/ml)	1.05	1.09	1.02	1.08	1.02	0.0248	0.493	0.179	0.067
IgG (ng/ml)	1127	1190	1256	1115	1267	157.5	0.946	0.629	0.851
IL-6 (pg/ml)	53.5	46.4	39.6	50.4	42.6	4.95	0.521	0.429	0.870

C control, DL dehydrated larvae, LL live larvae, DxA interaction diet/age, SEM standard error of mean
*score = 0; absent, score = 1; mild, score = 2; moderate, score = 3, severe

ISSN: 1746-6148