The influence of dietary protein levels on growth curve parameters of quail

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In South Africa quail do not have the same status as an agricultural produce as do other livestockspecies. As quail has mostly been judged as a cute little bird seen on shows, very few people havepaid attention to the commercial value of this bird specie.In South Africa quail farming is done on a very limited scale, but competition regarding this veryunique market is already challenging. If it is to be a viable project it is of utmost importance to limitthe costs to the minimum and, by doing so, increasing the profitability of the project.In this study the economic aspects of a quail production unit was researched to assess whether anyimprovements in profitability could be made.Quails from a production unit outside Stellenbosch were used to describe the growth curves of thesebirds under three different diet regimes. 300 Birds were used and then divided into groups of ahundred. The first treatment was fed the standard starter (22% protein) then after five weeks afinisher (19% protein). The second treatment was fed a starter ration containing 40% Soya oil cakeand 60% of the standard starter (27.2% protein). The same finisher as in treatment one was fed totreatment two after five weeks. Treatment three was fed a newly formulated starter ration (28%protein). The same finisher was fed to treatment three after five weeks as with the first twotreatments.It was found that treatments one and two differed significantly from treatment three, but not fromeach other. It was expected that treatment three would result in better growth than treatment one,but contrariwise, treatment three did the worst. In accordance with literature it was found that undercommercial conditions quail could be fed lower concentrations of protein than prescribed byliterature.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University