Effect of Inclusion of Black Pepper Powder as Natural Feed Additive on the Performance of Japanese quail

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the effect of inclusion of black pepper (BP) powder in the diet on production performance, nutrient digestibility and carcass characteristics of Japanese quail. One hundred and fifty, day old quail chicks were randomly allotted into five experimental groups, each with 3 replicates of 10 chicks and were offered respective diets for 5 weeks. BP was ground and is included at 0% (T₁; Control), 0.25 (T₂), 0.50 (T₃), 0.75 (T₄) and 1.0 (T₅) percent levels in iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous broiler quail diets to meet the nutrient requirements as per NRC, 1994. Resulted indicated increased body weight gain (P<0.05), decreased overall feed intake (P<0.01) and improved FCR (P<0.01) with inclusion of BP at 1.0% in the diet as compared to the control. There was a significant increase (P<0.01) in the digestibility of gross nutrients and fibre fractions with incorporation of BP at 1.0% in the diet compared to the control group. Similarly, incorporation of BP at 1.0% level in the diet had increased the carcass yield, ready to cook yield (P<0.05), dressing percentage and meat to bone ratio (P<0.01) in quails compared to the control. However, incorporation of BP up to 1.0% level in the diet had no effect (P>0.05) on feed cost/kg gain. Thus, it is concluded that BP can be included at 1.0% level in quail diets as natural feed additive without any adverse effects.