EFFECT OF DIFFERENT SOURCES OF FIBER ON THE INTESTINAL MORPHOLOGY OF DOMESTIC GEESE

Experiment was conducted to study the effect of sources of dietary fiber on the intestinal morphology of geese. Sixty white Roman geese of two-week-old were divided randomly into six groups and were fed with isoenergetic and isonitrogenous diets which contain alfalfa meal, barley hull, rice hull, purified cellulose, lignin, or pectin as the major dietary source of fiber. Different sources of dietary fiber significantly influenced the villi height and the crypt depth in the duodenum, and the villi height and the muscle layer thickness in the ileum (p < 0.05). The duodenal villus in the geese that fed diets with alfalfa meal, rice hull or pectin supplemented were significantly longest ($968.5{\mu}m$), whereas the lignin group was significantly shortest villus and deepest crypt depth (p < 0.05). The thicknesses of the ileal and caecal muscle layer were significantly thicker in the geese fed with cellulose supplemented diets than in those fed with the other treatment diets. The caecum of the barley bran fed geese possessed significantly longest villi and the most thick muscle layers (p < 0.05). From scanning electronic microscopic observation, the leafy and plate-like in the duodenal villi morphology of geese represented a more effective nutrient absorption in the small intestine. The morphology of ileal villi in geese was similar from herbivorous rabbit and from the African Green monkey.