Cassava foliage in quail feeding
Silva Júnior, Paulo AntonioLana, Sandra Roseli ValerioLana, Geraldo Roberto QuintãoSilva, Luis Carlos LiraTorres, Elisama CastroFerreira, Thamires Silva
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of including cassava foliage hay in quail diets on the performance, carcass characteristics, and economic viability of rearing these animals in the period of 1 to 35 days of age. Four hundred 1-day-old unsexed quail were distributed into five treatments in a completely randomized design with eight replicates and 10 birds per experimental unit. Experimental treatments consisted of diets including 0.0, 0.5, 10.0, 15.0, and 20.0% cassava foliage hay (CFH). Feed intake increased linearly (P < 0.05), while feed conversion worsened (P < 0.05) in the period of 1 to 21 days. During the phase of 22 to 35 days, the cassava by-product inclusion levels caused the feed intake and weight gain of the quails to decrease linearly (P < 0.05), but did not influence (P > 0.05) feed conversion. In the period of 1 to 35 days of age, the CFH inclusion levels had a linear effect (P < 0.05) on the performance variables, leading to an increase in feed intake and weight gain and worse feed conversion. An influence of the CFH levels was detected (P<0.05) on the absolute weights of back, liver, and gizzard and on the relative weights of breast, back, legs, heart, liver, and gizzard of the quail. Inclusion of 10% cassava foliage hay is recommended in the diet of meat quail aged 1 to 35 days.(AU)
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