Research Plan for Ph.

D
Topic:
PERFORMANCE OF JAPANESE QUAIL REARED UNDER DIFFERENT
ANTI-STRESSORS IN FEED DURING HUMID HOT SEASON

INTRODUCTION

The Japanese quail belongs to order galliformes, family phasidae, genus coturnix and species

japonica. The scientific name of Japanese quail is coturnix japonica (Thear, 1998; Mizutani,

2003). The first written record of Japanese quail is known to have in Japan in the eighth century.

The early wild Japanese quail are of dark cinnamon color. The adult females have pale breast

feathers speckled with dark spots whereas adult males have dark rusted feathers throughout the

breast and neck (Mizutani, 2003). Japanese quail are initially domesticated as pet song birds or

as game birds (Howes, 1964; Crawford, 1990; Kayang et al. 2004). Quails are found in Europe,

Asia, America and Australia but the commercial strains that are reared for meat and egg

production are present all over the world. Japanese quail are the best meat producers among all

the quails present in the world with average adult live weight at four weeks of age is 200 grams

(Ahmad, 2016). Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) is a domestic bird of economic importance

for commercial meat production in Egypt (Mahmoud El-Tarabany, 2016) and give eggs having

unique flavor (Kayang et al. 2004). Japanese quails are excellent laboratory animal used for

research purposes as they have low maintenance cost, short generation interval (3-4 generation

per year), high egg production (Oguz and Minvielle 2001), hardy, resist disease, and require

lower space and equipment utility (Minvielle, 2004).

The quail farming remained a neglected component of poultry industry in Pakistan until the

introduction of breeder parent stock of Japanese quail in the seventies (Ahmad, 2016). Small and
Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) starts a project of quail farming as a

profitable enterprise in rural women of Southern Punjab in 2007. Avian Research and Training

Centre (ARTC) introduced a UVAS jumbo quail to uplift a quail meat market in 2010. As quail

farming is progressing day by day in Pakistan, there is gradual increase in the name of broiler

quails, breeding stock, day old chicks and quail meat from 2010 to 2015. In a recent estimate,

population of broiler quail, breeding stock, day old chicks and meat is 61.62 million, 0.83

million, 64.53 million and 74.53 thousand tons, respectively (Ahmad, 2016).

Commercial and intensive poultry production is associated with various stresses leading

to decrease of productive and reproductive performance of growing chickens, parent

birds, and layers (Surai and Fisinin 2016). Japanese quails are also affected from various

environmental and management stresses that affect their productivity during humid hot season

(Bello and Sulaiman 2016)

Pakistan poultry farming is rapidly growing with hot and continental type climate having two or

more humid hot rainfall months. Pakistan is located in geographical regions of southwestern Asia

and situated in both northern and eastern hemisphere where July and August is considered to be

humid hot (Daghir, 2009), during these months bird experiences a series of stress, among these,

heat stress is the major cause of declining poultry farming in open sided houses, resulting into

emptying 25000 open sided houses (Akram, 2013).

Heat stress is one of the major causes of a decreased performance of laying quail in tropical and

subtropical countries (Mahmoud El-Tarabany, 2016). There are different management strategies

to counter these stresses i.e., use of high speed cool air to remove bird heat through convection

(Bottcher et al. 1993) and early age feed restriction to alleviate heat stress( Zulkifli et al. 1994 a,
b; Zulkifli et al. 2000). The vitagene concept of fighting stresses emerged as a new direction in a

nutritional research (Surai and Fisinin 2016). There are also different nutritional strategies to

reduce heat stress in chicken (Sahin et al. 2009) by giving different feed additives like vitamin C

(Whitehead and Keller 2003), betain (Attia et al. 2005), turmeric (Hosseini et al. 2012), chia seed

(Uribe et al. 2011) and use of different electrolytes (Naseem et al. 2005).

The use of vitamin C as an anti-stressor in heat stressed broiler resulted into an increased

performance and better carcass quality (Sahin and Kucuk 2001). Similarly, Chia seed can also be

used as an anti-stressor because it is potentially a great source of antioxidants which protect the

bird from heat stress and resulted better health condition (Uribe et al. 2011). Broilers reared

under the supplementation of betaine showed an improvement in growth, feed conversion ratio

(FCR) and immune response (Wang et al. 2004). Turmeric powder is also found beneficial in

reducing the negative effect of heat stress on broiler’s growth performance, production

performance and immune system (Hosseini et al. 2012).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Present study will be conducted at Szechenyi or Szent Istvan University, Hungary.

Experimental Plan / Methodology

A total of 1875 quail chicks will be procured from ARTC hatchery and will be arranged

according to completely randomized design, birds will be divided into 5 treatment groups having

5 replicates of 75 birds each. Treatments will be consisted of four anti-stressors i.e., synthetic

anti-stressors (Vitamin C and Betaine) and natural anti-stressors (Turmeric and Chia Seed) along

with a control group. Birds feed was supplemented with vitamin C, betaine, turmeric and chia

seed @ 600 mg /kg, 700 mg /kg, 300 mg /kg and 7000 mg /kg, respectively for the duration of
four weeks. Effect of these anti-stressors will be observed on weekly growth performance and

subsequent productive performance. After four weeks, 10 birds per treatment will be slaughtered

(Halal method) and blood will be collected for the determination of blood chemistry. After

slaughtering, birds will be de-feathered, eviscerated and their carcass traits will be calculated and

organoleptic will be performed. Thigh and drumsticks samples will be used for meat analysis.

Anti-stressors Dose (mg/kg)

(Treatment)

Vitamin C 600 Treatment = 5

Betaine 700 Replicates = 5
Birds / replicate = 75
Turmeric 300 Total = 5 × 5 × 75 = 1875
Chia Seeds 7000
Control Group --
At the end of 5th week, 15 females and 5 males will be selected from already maintained

experimental groups and their production performance will be recorded for the duration of three

weeks. Six eggs from each replicate will be collected for meat and egg quality traits.

3.2 Housing and Management

Birds will be maintained at octagonal quail shed having French made 5-tiered battery cage

system specially designed for broiler quails. Birds will be provided with ad libitum feed,

provision of fresh and clean water will be ensured by nipple drinker system. Birds will be reared

under humid hot season of august.

 Feed formulation for Japanese quail

Ingredients Percentage

Maize grain 55

Rice polish 5

Soya bean meal 34

Sugarcane molasses 4

NaCl/salt 1

Canola 1

Dry matter 88

Crude protein 22

Crude fiber 4.3

NDF 13.5

ADF 6

M.E 3000 Kcal

Statistical Analysis

Data will be analyzed through one-way ANOVA technique (Steel et al. 1997) using PROC GLM

in SAS software. Treatment means will be compared through Duncan’s (1955) Multiple Range

test assuming following mathematical model:

Yij = µ + Ʈi + Ɛij

Whereas,

Yij = Observation of dependent variable recorded on ith treatment

µ = Population Mean

Ʈi = Effect of ith treatment (i = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Ɛij = Residual effect of jth observation on ith treatment NID ~ 0, σ2

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