Bovine meat and bone meal as an economically viable alternative in quail feeding in the final phase

Abstract

Bovine meat and bone meal (MBM) has been used as a low-cost protein source in corn- and soybean meal-based poultry diets. However, to date, no studies investigating the effect of the dietary inclusion of MBM on the performance of Japanese quails and on egg production costs were found in literature. In this study, 600 Japanese quails in lay were distributed in a completely randomized experimental design consisting of six treatments (replacement levels of soybean meal by MBM:0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5%) with five replicates of 20 birds each to investigate if MBM is a viable alternative to maintain or to improve the live and economic performances of these birds. Treatments consisted of a control diet, based on corn and soybean meal, with no inclusion of MBM, and diets formulated with increasing levels (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5%) of MBM inclusion at the expense of soybean meal. The studied parameters were evaluated in four periods of 28 days each. Live performance parameters (egg weight, g; average egg production, %; egg weight, g; feed intake, g; feed conversion ratio per egg mass, kg/ kg and per dozen eggs, dz/kg; and livability, %); egg quality parameters (proportion of egg components, yolk, albumen, eggshell %; egg specific weight, g/cm3); and economic parameter (bio-economic nutritional index) were determined. Only egg weight, egg specific weight, and eggshell percentage were affected (p<0.05) by the treatments. Our results show that inclusion of bovine meat and bone meal can be added to the diet of Japanese quails in lay, causing no performance losses and promoting feed cost savings up to 5.24%.