EFFECTS OF FEED FORM ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF JAPANESE QUAIL

Abstract

A study was carried out to determine the effects of feed form i.e.crumble and mash feed on growth performance in Japanese quail. Totally 500 Nandanam quail III day-old chicks were weighed individually, then randomly assigned to two dietary treatment groups of 250 chicks each. They were 50 chicks per replicate and five replicate per dietary treatment group. These Japanese quails were fed with starter diet in the form of crumble and mash up to 5 weeks. The parameters such as weekly body weight, feed consumption, livability and carcass characteristics were recorded. There was a significant difference (P ≤ 0.01) in weekly body weight and body weight gain was observed between crumble and mash dietary treatment groups during entire study period of 5 weeks. Similarly, the feed consumption and FCR also showed significant (P ≤ 0.01) difference between the dietary treatment groups. The per cent livability showed no significant difference between dietary treatment groups. The pre- slaughter live weight showed significant (P ≤ 0.01) difference between the dietary treatments; however, the other carcass characteristics such as eviscerated weight, ready to cook yield, giblets yield, breast yield, and thigh yield showed no significant difference between dietary treatments. It can be concluded that crumble form of diet had improved the growth performance than mash form in Japanese quail.