Effects of Artemisia argyi powder on growth performance, meat quality, meat flavor and intestinal health of ducks

Artemisia argyi (AA), a traditional Chinese herbal medicine and food, is abundant in bioactive compounds and dietary fiber that could promote intestinal development, improve meat quality and regulate the intestinal microbiota. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Artemisia argyi powder (AAP) on growth performance, meat quality of duck, in addition to elucidating the potential mechanism at play. A total of 420 one-day-old Cherry Valley male ducks with similar body weights were randomly allocated into a control group and four AAP supplementation groups, with AAP levels set at 0%, 2%, 4%, 6%, and 8%, respectively. Each group consisted of 7 subgroups with 12 ducks per replicate, and the experimental period lasted for 42 days. The findings demonstrated that dietary supplementation with AAP no more than 6% had no effect on the growth performance. Duck's dietary supplementation with AAP exhibited reduced shear force (P = 0.007). Further analysis using Gas Chromatography-Ion Mobility Spectrometry (GC-IMS) revealed an increase in 6 characteristic volatile flavor compounds, including 1-octen-3-ol, Hexanol, Heptanal, 2-butanone, 2-pentanone, 2-heptanone. In addition, duck dietary supplementation with more than 6% AAP could improve the morphology of the small intestine of ducks, and this may be achieved by regulating the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Meanwhile, dietary AAP increased the relative cecal abundance of Bacteroides phylum (P < 0.05), Barnesiella genera (P < 0.01), and decreased relative abundances of Subdoligranulum (P < 0.01) and Blautia (P < 0.05). Furthermore, correlation analysis finding that the meat flavor compounds were positively correlated with the relative abundance of Barnesiella and Bilophila (P < 0.05), which mainly be involved in the formation of volatile flavor compounds in breast muscle. All of which indicated that AAP could improve meat quality, especially flavor, may be related to the regulation of intestinal morphology and microbiota. This findings suggest AAP is an effective strategy to improve the meat quality of ducks by regulating intestinal histomorphology and intestinal microbiota.