Effect of Dietary Incorporation of Acid Treated Fish Silage on the Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Broiler Japanese Quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

Abstract

The research work was carried out to evaluate the effect of dietary incorporation of acid treated fish silage on the performance and carcass characteristics of broiler Japanese quails. A total of 192, one-week old broiler Japanese quail chicks of either sex were randomly distributed into four dietary treatment groups with four replicates in each. The dietary treatments were supplied with standard broiler Japanese quail diet containing T1-0% fish silage (Control diet), T2- diet incorporated with 5% fish silage, T3 - diet incorporated with 10% fish silage and T4- diet incorporated with 15% fish silage. The weekly body weight, body weight gain, weekly feed consumption were statistically significant (P<0.05) and higher in control group than that of the birds fed with fish silage. The dietary inclusion of 5% fish silage showed similar feed efficiency, with that of the control and better when compared with other treatments. The carcass characteristics, serum biochemical parameters such as total protein, calcium, phosphorus and cholesterol fractions (HDL, LDL, and VLDL) were not influenced by the dietary incorporation of fish silage except, the decrease marked in breast meat yield with an increase in fish silage incorporation. As the feed cost per kg of diet incorporated with fish silage was comparatively lower than the control diet, it was concluded that incorporation of fish silage @5% in the diet of quail was economic showing better feed efficiency than the other groups.