Cardoon Meal (Cynara cardunculus var. altilis) as Alternative Protein Source during Finishing Period in Poultry Feeding

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Cardoon meal (Cynara cardunculus var. altilis) as alternative protein source during finishing period in

poultry feeding

Overall Comments:

Is there any cost reference/difference between cardoon meal and say soybean meal? This optimization in terms of a least-cost ration formulation is industry standard and should be addressed clearly up-front.

Abstract:

22. Define FAO. Probably mean by 2050, not in 250?
23. Did you mean test? Instead of text. Unclear as stated, perhaps just a typo?

30-31. Was the amount of SM replaced by CM the same amount? 1 pound to 1 pound?  What are the implications here in terms of this replacement?  While I know that an abstract doesn’t allow sufficient space for a complete analysis, it is unclear here what the replacement rate is – and – at what consequence.

32. Statistical difference or absolute difference?

Introduction:

43. Needs citation. Also, do you mean will increase by 70%? I f so, is this based on protein output or number of heads?
44. Needs citation

50-51. This is unclear. CM’s protein content is 25-20%? If so, it would be interesting to contrast it with that of SM.

Materials and Methods:

58. Is there a reason on why just male? This needs explanation, justification, and citation/support.
59. Define AOAC. This applies for all abbreviations in the file. The first time used, they should be defined.
60. I’d suggest “placed” instead of “poured”.

Results:

118. It might be good to include how is palatability defined and measure.

Table 3. are the units grams?  Please check for units and specificity throughout the manuscript and tables.

Discussion:

157-182. It seems that the overall discussion drifted away from the main aim of the study, which is to compare SM to CM. It then started discussing about open range growing and indoor growing. I could see how this is relevant if different results are expected for CM when used indoors our outdoors, but this was not listed as an objective of this study and seems to be beyond its reach. Furthermore, the analysis doesn’t address this directly in terms of analytics/study design.  Thus, this seems beyond the scope of the study.

195. Needs citation.

Conclusion:

202. I would suggest stating explicitly how CM contributes to sustainability

Author Response

Overall Comments:

Is there any cost reference/difference between cardoon meal and say soybean meal? This optimization in terms of a least-cost ration formulation is industry standard and should be addressed clearly up-front.

AU: Soybean meal cost is 342/345 € per ton while Cardoon meal cost is 180/190 € per ton. This information has been added in the introduction.

Abstract:

1. Define FAO. Probably mean by 2050, not in 250?

AU: The Acronym FAO has been defined and the sentence has been modified according with Referee suggestion

1. Did you mean test? Instead of text. Unclear as stated, perhaps just a typo?

AU: Sorry, it was a typo. The text has been corrected

30-31. Was the amount of SM replaced by CM the same amount? 1 pound to 1 pound?  What are the implications here in terms of this replacement?  While I know that an abstract doesn’t allow sufficient space for a complete analysis, it is unclear here what the replacement rate is – and – at what consequence.

AU: To be comparable and to guarantee the animal protein requirements, the diets have been formulated isoproteic. Hence, the partial replacement of SM by CM was 16% as reported in table 1 and 2. Please, see lines 72-73.

 

1. Statistical difference or absolute difference?

AU: The Authors have modified the sentence specifying that the difference is a “statistical difference”

Introduction:

1. Needs citation. Also, do you mean will increase by 70%? I f so, is this based on protein output or number of heads?

AU: The citation has been added and the test has been corrected

1. Needs citation

T AU: he reference has been added

50-51. This is unclear. CM’s protein content is 25-20%? If so, it would be interesting to contrast it with that of SM.

AU: The sentence has been modified

Materials and Methods:

1. Is there a reason on why just male? This needs explanation, justification, and citation/support.

AU: One of the factors that affects carcass yield is sex. Males show higher yields than do females. Hence, the choice of males is related to the higher rate of growth than females and the homogeneity of sex reduces the phenotype variability. Handbook of poultry science and technology Vol 1: Primary processing, edited by Isabel Guerriero-Legarreta and Y.H. Hui. Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons Inc p103

 

The reference has been inserted

 

 

1. Define AOAC. This applies for all abbreviations in the file. The first time used, they should be defined.

AU: Corrected

 

1. I’d suggest “placed” instead of “poured”.

AU: Corrected

 

Results:

1. It might be good to include how is palatability defined and measure.

AU: The palatability of a feed is evaluated measuring the feed intake and observing the behavior of animal during the feeding. No scale was adopted. The sentence has been modified.

Table 3. are the units grams?  Please check for units and specificity throughout the manuscript and tables.

The units are present in the table: the gain and body weight are reported in “g”, while feed/gain is pure number

Discussion:

157-182. It seems that the overall discussion drifted away from the main aim of the study, which is to compare SM to CM. It then started discussing about open range growing and indoor growing. I could see how this is relevant if different results are expected for CM when used indoors our outdoors, but this was not listed as an objective of this study and seems to be beyond its reach. Furthermore, the analysis doesn’t address this directly in terms of analytics/study design.  Thus, this seems beyond the scope of the study.

AU: the discussion has been modified according to the suggestions of Reviewers

1. Needs citation.

AU: Sorry, but the citation is present [20]

Conclusion:

202. I would suggest stating explicitly how CM contributes to sustainability

AU: The conclusion has been modified

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of manuscript ID sustainability-804123

Title: "Cardoon meal (Cynara cardunculus var. altilis) as alternative protein source during finishing period in poultry feeding”

 

 

The aim of study  was to evaluate the effect of cardoon meal as substitute of soybean meal in the diet of Kabir chicks during the finishing period. The topic of research is very interesting, however, the work has many substantive and editorial errors - it requires major changes.

 

Main note: there is no repetition. I consider the verification of the results regarding the influence of the experimental factor (nutrition) on growth performance based only on data from one group (15 birds = 1 group = 1 element),  is no correct.

The Authors mentioned that these are preliminary studies, therefore the results obtained can be  the indication for further, complete research.

 

Other (selected) comments:

Page 3, lines 87-88. “Weekly, birds were individually weighed, and the feed intake was

 registered for each pen” How were individual birds identified? Were the birds marked? How?

 

Page 3, lines 90-91:  “At the 81st day, the animals were slaughtered.” How were the birds slaughtered?

Page 2. Lines 102-103; “After 24h from the slaughter, the dressing out and the major traits of the carcasses were  evaluated.”  What does “dressing out” mean?

Instead of “major traits”- better selected traits? Have the carcasses been chilled? At what temperature

What methodology did the carcass divide into elements? Was the carcass of all birds tested or randomly selected?

 

 Page 4, lines 118-120;  the results described should have been presented in Table 3.

Page 4, line 118; Cardoon meal showed a good level of palatability-  too hasty statement - palatability has not been studied.

 

Table 3 – Title is not suitable. There is no information about dressing out, major traits and meat color! The design of the table needs improvement.

Why no body weight results were given in individual weeks but only the final BW?

 

Page 4, Table 4 ; Title is not suitable. The design of the table needs improvement.

What does "fat" mean - is it abdominal fat?

“breast”- breast muscles ?

 

The examples of editorial errors:

• dot at the end of the title or subsection titles.

 

 

 

Yours faithfully

Reviewer

Author Response

Review of manuscript ID sustainability-804123

Title: "Cardoon meal (Cynara cardunculus var. altilis) as alternative protein source during finishing period in poultry feeding”

 

 

The aim of study was to evaluate the effect of cardoon meal as substitute of soybean meal in the diet of Kabir chicks during the finishing period. The topic of research is very interesting, however, the work has many substantive and editorial errors - it requires major changes.

 

Main note: there is no repetition. I consider the verification of the results regarding the influence of the experimental factor (nutrition) on growth performance based only on data from one group (15 birds = 1 group = 1 element), is no correct.

AU: We know that the numbers of animals is limited but the minimum number of birds to have a statistical significance was determined with G-power, choosing a value = 0.05, power (1-β) = 0.8 and the medium effect size = 0.30. The animals were singularly identified by ring.

The Authors mentioned that these are preliminary studies, therefore the results obtained can be the indication for further, complete research.

 

Other (selected) comments:

Page 3, lines 87-88. “Weekly, birds were individually weighed, and the feed intake was

 registered for each pen” How were individual birds identified? Were the birds marked? How?

AU: The animals were singularly identified by ring as reported at line 70 (at line 65-66 in the first submitted version).

 

Page 3, lines 90-91:  “At the 81st day, the animals were slaughtered.” How were the birds slaughtered?

AU: At the 81^st day, the animals were sacrificed in an authorized slaughter-house in compliance with Italian Government guidelines (D.Lgs.vo 4 Marzo 2014, n 26).

 

Page 2. Lines 102-103; “After 24h from the slaughter, the dressing out and the major traits of the carcasses were  evaluated.”  What does “dressing out” mean?

AU: The “dressing out” is a “technical term” used in zootechny indicating the ratio between the live weight and the dead weight of animal after the evisceration.

Instead of “major traits”- better selected traits? Have the carcasses been chilled? At what temperature

AU: “Major traits” has been replaced with “selected traits”

AU: All physical measurements were carried out at the standard temperature of 25°C.

 

What methodology did the carcass divide into elements? Was the carcass of all birds tested or randomly selected?

AU: the carcass of all birds were tested (please see line 111) and the methodology for meat portioning is reported in: The Science of Poultry and Meat processing Chapter 9, S. Barbut 2015 University of Guelph

 Page 4, lines 118-120; the results described should have been presented in Table 3.

  AU: Table 3 includes only data about individual mesures, whereas the intake was measured at group level. Hence in order to avoid confounding the reader, we separated data of intake putting them in the text.

Page 4, line 118; Cardoon meal showed a good level of palatability-  too hasty statement - palatability has not been studied.

 AU: The sentence has been modified.

Table 3 – Title is not suitable. There is no information about dressing out, major traits and meat color! The design of the table needs improvement.

AU: The title has been corrected

Why no body weight results were given in individual weeks but only the final BW?

 AU: Thank you for your question. We used the individual body weight in order to calculate the average  weekly weight gain. For the sake of simplicity, we avoid to include also the average weekly body weight in the table.

Page 4, Table 4 ; Title is not suitable. The design of the table needs improvement.

What does "fat" mean - is it abdominal fat?

AU: Perivisceral fat

“breast”- breast muscles ?

AU: The description of term “breast “ is reported in : The Science of Poultry and Meat processing Chapter 9, S. Barbut 2015 University of Guelph

 

 

The examples of editorial errors:

• dot at the end of the title or subsection titles.

AU: corrected

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript reports research into the use of cardoon meal (Cynara cardunculus) as alternative to soya meal during finishing period in poultry feeding. The subject matter is original and contributes to the scientific knowledge, but in my mind, it does not fall into the scope of this journal. This is a paper related to animal science but not very related to the “aims and scope” of Sustainability journal. Anyway, the manuscript presents some weaknesses, which are listed below.

 

General

The manuscript is well written, and the objective is clearly stated. However, the Introduction section should be improved and the Materials and Methods section is sometimes unclear. Furthermore, some subsections of the Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion are unrelated with the aim of the manuscript. Finally, conclusions are not supported by the obtained results.

In my mind, the main problem of the manuscript is related to the statistical design. The experimental unit is not clear. Models used should be clearly stated in the document. It is not clear why data were divided weekly. Finally, authors suggest that a short period of adaptation to the cardoon meal diets could be the responsible of the obtained results but nothing is proposed to raise this problem.

Specific comments

Line 22. Please, avoid starting a sentence with an abbreviation.

Lines 33-34. This sentence is very general and it is not clear.

Lines 37-38. Please, give more details. The moisture content of non-irrigated lands in several areas could be higher than that of the irrigated lands located in other areas.

Lines 40-41. Please, give some details.

Line 41. Please, avoid starting a sentence with an abbreviation.

Lines 44-45. Please, insert a reference.

Lines 51-52. Please, insert a reference. Is Cardoon meal only used in ruminant feeding for its high fibre content? Please give an average content of fibre of cardoon meal. What could be the inconvenient of this fiber content in poultry production?

Line 52. No hypothesis have been stated. Please, explain your hypothesis.

The objective is very general. Please give more details.

Line 53. Why only during the finishing period? Please justify.

Line 56. Was the protocol approved by an ethical committee?

Line 101. What is the interest of these determinations? No hypothesis have been stated in the Introduction section concerning carcass traits.

Lines 102-103. Please, give more details.

Line 108. This subsection is not clear.

Line 109. What is the interest? Why each week?

Lines 110-111. Please give more details about the experimental unit.

how many replications by treatment?

Please, write the statistical model used

Please give more details about random effects.

What about interactions?

Lines 111-113. Please give more details about the experimental unit.

How many replications by treatment?

Please, write the statistical model used

Line 118. “Good level” is subjective

Line 118. Was "palatability" estimated? Nothing is stated in the materials and methods section

Line 125. Values of this table are not clear.

For CG, the gain value during the period 60-81 is different from the sum of values during the three weeks.

For feed/gain, there is some differences between values reported for the 60-81 days and average values during the three weeks for SG, SCG, and CG

I do not understand the title of the table

Line 138. The title is not appropriate

Line 144. This subsection is not relevant. Please explain the interest of this subsection.

Were statistical analysis performed on these determinations?

Line 157. “Good palatability” is subjective. Palatability has not been measured

Line 157. It is not clear in the results section if the differences between treatments were significant. No estimates of sem have been provided. So, I suggested deleting this sentence. As alternative, you can provide more details about the obtained results in the Results section.

Lines 183-186. This paragraph is not relevant. If authors will to maintain these sentences, a reference should be stated in the objective statement. These sentences should be statistically proved

Line 200. Conclusions are not supported by the results.

Conclusions are unclear and very broad. Why preliminary? This is the first time this word appear in the manuscript.

Why the use of CM is suggested in the finishing period if in this study other periods have not been tested?

The contribution of CM to the sustainability of poultry production should be proved. It is not proved in this manuscript

In this study, only one breed was used. The last sentence is not relevant

Author Response

General

The manuscript is well written, and the objective is clearly stated. However, the Introduction section should be improved and the Materials and Methods section is sometimes unclear. Furthermore, some subsections of the Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion are unrelated with the aim of the manuscript. Finally, conclusions are not supported by the obtained results.

In my mind, the main problem of the manuscript is related to the statistical design. The experimental unit is not clear. Models used should be clearly stated in the document. It is not clear why data were divided weekly. Finally, authors suggest that a short period of adaptation to the cardoon meal diets could be the responsible of the obtained results but nothing is proposed to raise this problem.

Specific comments

Line 22. Please, avoid starting a sentence with an abbreviation.

AU: corrected

Lines 33-34. This sentence is very general and it is not clear.

AU: The sentence has been modified

Lines 37-38. Please, give more details. The moisture content of non-irrigated lands in several areas could be higher than that of the irrigated lands located in other areas.

AU: The sentence has been modified specifying that the area is Mediterranean lands

 

 

Lines 40-41. Please, give some details.

AU: The sentence has been modified

Line 41. Please, avoid starting a sentence with an abbreviation.

AU: corrected

 

Lines 44-45. Please, insert a reference.

AU: The reference has been inserted

Lines 51-52. Please, insert a reference. Is Cardoon meal only used in ruminant feeding for its high fibre content? Please give an average content of fibre of cardoon meal. What could be the inconvenient of this fiber content in poultry production?

AU: more details and references have been inserted

Line 52. No hypothesis has been stated. Please, explain your hypothesis.

The objective is very general. Please give more details.

AU: more details have been inserted

Line 53. Why only during the finishing period? Please justify.

AU: The explanation for the choice of Kabir breed and of  the finishing period is at line 103-105 of the new version of manuscript

Line 56. Was the protocol approved by an ethical committee?

AU: There no protocol number because this is a feeding trial and the Italian law does not foresee a protocol number for this kind of trial but only a supervision of ethical committee.

Line 101. What is the interest of these determinations? No hypothesis have been stated in the Introduction section concerning carcass traits.

AU: More details have been inserted in the introduction

Lines 102-103. Please, give more details.

AU: More details have been inserted

Line 108. This subsection is not clear.

AU: the statistical model has been better described

Line 109. What is the interest? Why each week?

AU:  The statistical model has been better described

 

Lines 110-111. Please give more details about the experimental unit.

 

how many replications by treatment?

Please, write the statistical model used

Please give more details about random effects.

What about interactions?

AU:  The statistical model has been better described

 

Lines 111-113. Please give more details about the experimental unit.

How many replications by treatment?

Please, write the statistical model used

AU:  The statistical model has been better described

 

Line 118. “Good level” is subjective

AU:  The sentence has been corrected

 

Line 118. Was "palatability" estimated? Nothing is stated in the materials and methods section

AU:  The sentence has been corrected

Line 125. Values of this table are not clear.

AU:  Sorry! The title of table 3 was wrong. The title has been changed.

For CG, the gain value during the period 60-81 is different from the sum of values during the three weeks.

AU:  Sorry! There was a typo. The correct value has been inserted

For feed/gain, there is some differences between values reported for the 60-81 days and average values during the three weeks for SG, SCG, and CG

AU:  Differences are due to the different statistical model adopted. In the first case (weakly data) a repeated measures model was adopted and the data were corrected according to the animal effect as random effect. In the second case (values of the whole experimental period) the means were obtained by applying an ANOVA model, considering only diet as fixed effect.

I do not understand the title of the table

T AU:  he title of table has been corrected

Line 138. The title is not appropriate

AU:  The title has been modified

Line 144. This subsection is not relevant. Please explain the interest of this subsection.

AU:  Animal welfare is strongly linked to animal nutrition. Deficiency symptoms due to lack in meeting requirements of nutrients are visible by behavior, feces compactness, mortality, respiratory and enteric disease, presence of pathogens due to a low response of immunosystems. 

Were statistical analysis performed on these determinations?

AU:  Animal welfare evaluation on the experimental subjects was carried out using the guidelines of the ClassyFarm system that is an integrated system aimed at categorizing livestock according to risk. It is an all-Italian innovation that facilitates and improves collaboration and dialogue between breeders and the competent authority to raise the level of safety and quality of the products of the agri-food chain. It is available to official veterinarians, company veterinarians and breeders capable of monitoring, analyzing and directing interventions on the farm to comply and fully implement the approach of the recent European legislation on Animal Health Law and Official controls. Hence it is a descriptive method and not inferential.

 

Line 157. “Good palatability” is subjective. Palatability has not been measured

T AU:  he sentence has been deleted

Line 157. It is not clear in the results section if the differences between treatments were significant. No estimates of sem have been provided. So, I suggested deleting this sentence. As alternative, you can provide more details about the obtained results in the Results section.

AU:  The sentence has been deleted

Lines 183-186. This paragraph is not relevant. If authors will to maintain these sentences, a reference should be stated in the objective statement. These sentences should be statistically proved

AU:  Please, see above.

 

Line 200. Conclusions are not supported by the results.

Conclusions are unclear and very broad. Why preliminary? This is the first time this word appear in the manuscript.

AU:  Conclusions have been modified

Why the use of CM is suggested in the finishing period if in this study other periods have not been tested?

AU:  As mentioned in the text, the main problem of CM use in monogastric feeding is the high content of fiber that decrease the digestibility of the diet. Considering that protein requirement in starter and grower periods are higher than in finisher one, the best use of CM is the finishing phase of birds.

The contribution of CM to the sustainability of poultry production should be proved. It is not proved in this manuscript

AU:  Chicken has high efficiency in converting feed nutrients in body weight gains (meat) but the food vs feed competition (one of the most important problem in sustainability of animal production) is particularly high because most of dietary ingredients are mostly edible also for humans. In fact, one of the most important problems affecting the sustainability of animal production is the food vs feed competition, under several aspects: employment of human-edible crops in feeding practices to improve animal dietary efficiency; mechanical soil tillage impact; soil and water exploitation. Hence, SM use in animal feeding is largely criticized for the high food vs feed competition CM may contributes because it is a by-product of agro-industry and it can be cultivated in marginal land in which other crops cannot be cultivated. This aspect has been added in the introduction to better explain this concept.

In this study, only one breed was used. The last sentence is not relevant

AU:  The sentence has been removed

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

 

Please see my comments below:

Line22-24. starting sentences are not very attractive. There are many source of protein, Providing protein is essential but by 2050 people will suffer more from hunger and lack of enough amount of productions. Please rewrite the starting sentence. 

 

Line 27-28. Cardoon meal has been used in ruminant feeding but little information is available in poultry production.

Please convince me why do you think if an additive was good for ruminant, it can be good for poultry as well? You cannot apply same diets for different farm animals!

This is the Authors assumption or you have supportive documents to show your study is worth to be done? Also the study results almost ended with no effects.

Please provide me evidence or explain it.

 

Line 33-34.I am wondering, the results support no effects but the authors concluded that Cardoon can be an alternative?!!!This causes confusion.

No differences in feed efficiency neither in dressing out nor in meat quality were found among groups. Cardoon meal could be an alternative to the soybean meal in the last feeding period.

 

Line 37. The introduction needs to start with the problem then talking about Cardoon as a solution. Please fix the introduction.

 

Line 71. Table title. Not sure this is the journal format or a mistake.

 

Line 101. The method has no details that how every single parameter was measured.  How samples were processed. I can see no information. I cannot judge the results when I have no clue how the samples were done.  

 

Thanks

 

Author Response

Dear Authors,

 

Please see my comments below:

Line22-24. starting sentences are not very attractive. There are many source of protein, Providing protein is essential but by 2050 people will suffer more from hunger and lack of enough amount of productions. Please rewrite the starting sentence.

AU: We agree with the referee when he says that providing protein is essential but by 2050 people will suffer more from hunger and lack of enough amount of production. But FAO published a report in which a significant increase of availability of poultry meat is expected. We have modified the sentence according to this consideration.

 

Line 27-28. Cardoon meal has been used in ruminant feeding but little information is available in poultry production.

Please convince me why do you think if an additive was good for ruminant, it can be good for poultry as well? You cannot apply same diets for different farm animals!

This is the Authors assumption or you have supportive documents to show your study is worth to be done? Also the study results almost ended with no effects.

Please provide me evidence or explain it.

AU: If an additive is good for ruminants, not necessary is good for poultry because the last one is monogastric animal. Literature show several information about the use of CM in ruminant nutrition. These articles show that this ingredient has good level of protein and contains flavonoids. In contrast, no information is available for poultry. Hence, our investigation is aimed to verify if CM may be used also in poultry feeding and improve the knowledge in this field. The results have been encouraging. In fact, we did not aspect that CM showed better performances than SM because SM is the best proteaginous for animal feeding in term of protein digestibility and of meeting animal protein requirement. The fact that birds fed CM showed performances (gain, feed intake, feed efficiency) similar to birds fed SM is just a good target.

Moreover, chicken has high efficiency in converting feed nutrients in body weight gains (meat) but the food vs feed competition (one of the most important problem in sustainability of animal production) is particularly high because most of dietary ingredients are mostly edible also for humans. In fact, one of the most important problems affecting the sustainability of animal production is the food vs feed competition, under several aspects: employment of human-edible crops in feeding practices to improve animal dietary efficiency; mechanical soil tillage impact; soil and water exploitation. HenceSM use in animal feeding is largely criticized for the high food vs feed competition CM may contributes because it is a by-product of agro-industry and it can be cultivated in marginal land in which other crops cannot be cultivated. This aspect has been added in the introduction to better explain this concept.

 

Line 33-34. I am wondering, the results support no effects but the authors concluded that Cardoon can be an alternative?!!!This causes confusion.

No differences in feed efficiency neither in dressing out nor in meat quality were found among groups. Cardoon meal could be an alternative to the soybean meal in the last feeding period.

 AU: Hence, our investigation is aimed to verify if CM may be used also in poultry feeding and improve the knowledge in this field. The results have been encouraging. In fact, we did not aspect that CM showed better performances than SM because SM is the best proteaginous for animal feeding in term of protein digestibility and of meeting animal protein requirement. The fact that birds fed CM showed performances (gain, feed intake, feed efficiency) similar to birds fed SM is just a good target.

 

Line 37. The introduction needs to start with the problem then talking about Cardoon as a solution. Please fix the introduction.

 AU: The introduction has been modified

Line 71. Table title. Not sure this is the journal format or a mistake.

  AU: Author guideline has been checked

Line 101. The method has no details that how every single parameter was measured.  How samples were processed. I can see no information. I cannot judge the results when I have no clue how the samples were done.  

  AU: This paragraph has been implemented

Thanks

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of manuscript ID sustainability-804123

Title: "Cardoon meal (Cynara cardunculus var. altilis) as alternative protein source during finishing period in poultry feeding”

GENERAL COMMENT:
I consider this work is within the scope of “Sustainability”. This new version has been significantly improved and the Authors have taken into account all my previous recommendations. The manuscript is well written and structured , and the methods used are adequate. Results are clear and Discussion is well oriented.

Yours faithfully
Reviewer

Author Response

The Authors thank the Referee

Regards

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors have raised most of the reviewer’s comments. However, I have an important comment concerning the conclusions of the study. I think they are not supported by the results.

First conclusion is a sentence that is found in the Introduction section.

Furthermore:

“Since cardoon can be cultivated also in marginal and unutilized lands and considering that CM is a byproduct of oil extraction, the use of CM in poultry feeding strategy could be a good opportunity in increasing the sustainability of animal production” This sentence could be placed in the Introduction section but the results of this study do not support it.

 

“The use of CM is suggested during the finishing period in which protein requirement is lower than in starter or growing period”. This sentence is not a conclusion of the study. Authors have only tested CM during the finishing period. Therefore, this conclusion is wrong.

 

Consequently, conclusions (article and abstract) must be changed before a possible acceptation of the manuscript.

The conclusions of this study concerns only males during the finishing period

 

Line 28 please correct “Forthy”

Author Response

The Conclusions have been completely re-written according to the Referee’s suggestion

Line 28 please correct “Forthy”

Sorry! Corrected

 

The Authors thank the Referee

Regards

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

 

Thank you for the significant changes you have made to the manuscript. However, the authors still need to do a few minor changes to the manuscript. Please see my suggestions below:

 

Please revise Line 31-32, and Line 259-260 to something like what I suggested here: 

 

Line 31-32: Conclusion for the abstract must reflect your obtained results, unfortunately the way is already presented is unclear and may confuse readers.

From: No statistical differences in feed efficiency neither in dressing out nor in meat quality were found among groups. Cardoon meal could be used instead of soybean meal in the finishing period of poultry feeding.

To: No statistical differences in feed efficiency neither in dressing out nor in meat quality were found among groups. However, Cardoon meal improved body weight at the last stage of growing period and showed lower perivisceral fat. Therefore, Cardoon meal could be considered as an alternative for soybean meal in the finishing period of poultry feeding.

 

Line 259 and 260: No reason provided in your statement why CM is an interesting additive (same as the abstract).

From: The results of this study showed that CM may be an
interesting alternative protein source in replacing SM in poultry feeding

To: The current results demonstrated that Cardoon meal improved body weight at the final stage of growing period, and this suggest that it could be considered as an alternative additive for SM.

 

I have no further questions after these minor changes.

Best regards,

 

Author Response

Line 31-32 and Line 259 and 260

 

Thank you for the suggestion. However, poultry fed CM did not show a higher body weight but similar performances respect to poultry fed SM. The sentence has been modified according to the Referee’s Suggestion.

 

The Authors thank the Referee

Regards