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Research Plan For Ph. D Topic
Research Plan For Ph. D Topic
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
Ingredients Percentage
Maize grain 55
Rice polish 5
Sugarcane molasses 4
NaCl/salt 1
Canola 1
Dry matter 88
Crude protein 22
NDF 13.5
ADF 6
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
Yij = µ + Ʈi + Ɛij
Whereas,
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