Alleviating the harmful effects of new valley summer on growth performance and health status of Japanese quail by 1. feeding time

Abstract EN

A total number of one hundred and fifty unsexed one-day old chicks of Japanese quail were used to study the effect of feeding time on the growth performance of birds under subtropical prevailing environmental conditions in New Valley.

All chicks were housed in batteries in five equal groups (3 replicates of 10 birds each).

The birds of first group were full-fed ad libitum and were considered the control (C).

While the second group (T1) was fed 75% of diet at morning and 25% of diet at afternoon; the third group (T2) was fed 50% of diet at morning and 50% of diet at afternoon; the fourth group (T3) was fed 25% of diet at morning and 75% of diet at afternoon; the fifth group (T4) was fed 0% of diet at morning and 100% of diet at afternoon.

All experimental birds were supplied with clean water all the time.

The obtained results indicated that change of feeding time affected body weight, feed conversion, most blood parameters, body temperature, viability rate and tonic immobility in Japanese quail.

However, insignificant differences of plumage conditions and some carcass traits were observed among all experimental groups.

Therefore, it could be recommended that feeding time (25% of diet at morning and 75% of diet at afternoon) during summer season could be applied successfully by the farm managers to have a better growth performance without any significant negative effects on production process.