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Assessment of Residual Feed Intake and Its Relevant Measurements in Two Varieties of Japanese Quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) under High Environmental Temperature
Fathi, M.M.; Al-Homidan, I.; Ebeid, T.A.; Galal, A.; Abou-Emera, O.K. Assessment of Residual Feed Intake and Its Relevant Measurements in Two Varieties of Japanese Quails (Coturnixcoturnix japonica) under High Environmental Temperature. Animals2019, 9, 299.
Fathi, M.M.; Al-Homidan, I.; Ebeid, T.A.; Galal, A.; Abou-Emera, O.K. Assessment of Residual Feed Intake and Its Relevant Measurements in Two Varieties of Japanese Quails (Coturnixcoturnix japonica) under High Environmental Temperature. Animals 2019, 9, 299.
Fathi, M.M.; Al-Homidan, I.; Ebeid, T.A.; Galal, A.; Abou-Emera, O.K. Assessment of Residual Feed Intake and Its Relevant Measurements in Two Varieties of Japanese Quails (Coturnixcoturnix japonica) under High Environmental Temperature. Animals2019, 9, 299.
Fathi, M.M.; Al-Homidan, I.; Ebeid, T.A.; Galal, A.; Abou-Emera, O.K. Assessment of Residual Feed Intake and Its Relevant Measurements in Two Varieties of Japanese Quails (Coturnixcoturnix japonica) under High Environmental Temperature. Animals 2019, 9, 299.
Abstract
Three hundred ten 12-wek-old laying quails (155 each) were randomly selected from the initial population and kept in individual battery cages. The measurements of growth and egg production were determined to derive RFI. The relationship between RFI and egg quality, blood parameters and carcass characteristics was also determined. The results indicated that the gray quails had significantly higher egg mass and lower broken eggs compared to the white quails. A significant increase for eggshell strength and shell % was found in eggs produced from gray quails compared to white counterparts, although the shell thickness was the same. The results of multiple regression analysis clearly identified a significant effect of metabolic body weight and egg mass in computing expected feed intake rather than body weight gain in both varieties of Japanese quails. Strongly positive correlation between RFI and feed intake in both gray and white quail varieties was found. The same trend was also observed for feed conversion ratio (FCR). Therefore, including RFI in selection criteria of Japanese quail to improve FCR under high environmental temperature is highly recommended.
Keywords
residual feed consumption; quail; high environmental temperature
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Animal Science, Veterinary Science and Zoology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
