Effects of enzymes in diets with varying energy levels on growth and egg production performance of Japanese quail

Abstract

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of feed-grade enzyme supplementation in diets with varying levels of energy on the performance of growing and laying Japanese quails. Day-old Japanese quails, 504 in number, were subjected to six dietary treatments with six replicates at each treatment. Each replicate had 14 chicks. The dietary treatments consisted of three energy levels ie 12.15 MJ (2900 kcal), 11.30 MJ (2700 kcal) and 10.48 MJ (2500 kcal) ME kg −1 diet and two enzyme levels (0 and 0.5 g kg −1 diet). A metabolism trial was conducted at the fourth week of age. At the end of week 5, 10 quails (five of each sex) per treatment were sacrificed for carcass characteristics and 20 female quails from each of the six dietary groups were housed in individual laying cages and fed respective layer diet to study the laying performance and egg quality up to 20 weeks of age. Body weight gains of quails fed 12.15 MJ or 11.30 MJ ME kg −1 diets were significantly higher (p < 0.01) than those fed diets with 10.46 MJ ME kg −1 diet. Feed intake was significantly lower (p < 0.01) in birds that received diet with 12.15 MJ ME kg −1 than in birds that diets containing either 11.30 or 10.46 MJ ME kg −1 diet. Feed conversion ratio (p < 0.01) was best at 12.15, followed by 11.30 and 10.46 MJ ME kg −1 diet. Enzyme supplementation did not improve the growth performance, feed intake or feed conversion efficiency of quails. Enzyme addition also did not influence nitrogen retention or energy or dry matter metabolizability. The carcass characteristics did not differ because of energy or enzyme supplementation. Feed intake increased significantly (p < 0.01) as the dietary energy level decreased. The egg production and quality characteristics remained almost similar in all the dietary treatments. It was concluded that the optimum dietary energy level for quail was 12.15 MJ (2900 kcal) ME kg −1 during the growing phase and 11.30 MJ (2700 kcal) ME kg −1 during the laying phase. Addition of feed enzymes to conventional diets containing varying levels of maize, soyabean meal, fish meal and deoiled rice bran was not beneficial to improve growth, carcass traits, egg production performance or nutrient utilization.

The response of Japanese quails (heavy body weight line) to dietary energy levels and graded essential amino acid levels on growth performance and immuno-competence

“…FI differed significantly (P b 0.01) due to dietary energy levels, and reduced linearly (P b 0.01) with the increase in energy levels during 0-3 or 0-5 weeks of age. These results were in line with those of other workers (Elangovan et al, 2004). A higher FI with decrease in dietary energy concentration was to compensate energy intake.…”

“…The FCR improved linearly (P b 0.01) at both the growth phases (0-3 and 0-5 weeks) with increase in dietary energy level, and the best (P b 0.01) FCR was emerged from diet with 12.97 MJ ME kg − 1 . An improvement in FCR in growing quails with increasing dietary energy level was also reported earlier (Elangovan et al, 2004). FCR improved with increase in EAA level during 0-3 weeks of age.…”

“…Therefore, a dietary level of 11.30 MJ ME kg − 1 and high EAA (25.8-26.0%CP) during the 0-5 weeks of age was found optimum for body weight gain. Live weight gain also did not differ among diets with 12.13 MJ or 11.30 MJ ME kg − 1 during 0-5 weeks (Elangovan et al (2004)) or 11.72-13.39 MJ ME kg − 1 during 0-6 weeks of age (Onyimonyi and Okeke, 2000). The quails responded beneficially to high EAA level (25.8-26.0% CP) which was in line with the earlier feeding trial (Kaur et al, 2006).…”

The Performance of Japanese Quail (White Breasted Line) to Dietary Energy and Amino Acid Levels on Growth and Immuno-competence

“…Therefore, a dietary level of 2700 kcal/kg and high EAA (25.8-26.0% CP) during the 0-5 weeks of age was found optimum for body weight gain. Live weight gain also did not differ among diets with 2900 or 2700 kcal ME/kg during 0-5 weeks [24] or 11.72-13.39 MJ ME/kg during 0-6 weeks of age [25]. The quails responded beneficially to high EAA level (25.8-26.0% CP) which was in line with the earlier feeding trial with heavy body weight line of quails [7].…”

A simple estimation of ideal profile of essential amino acids and metabolizable energy for growing Japanese quail

“…A few reports on growing quails showed that dietary AME did not significantly affect growth rate (Elangovan et al., ; Kaur et al., , ; Tarasewicz et al., ; Mosaad and Iben, ), suggesting that quail chicks might normally grow at even low levels of dietary AME that ranged from 2800 to 3100 kcal/kg. However, Ghazaghi et al.…”