Egg laying performance and economics of production of japanese quails fed diets containing peeled and cooked sweet potato meal

Abstract

Japanese quails are small in size, early maturing, come to egg production between 5th and 6th week of life, hardy and prolific but requires local feeds for sustainability. Thus, a feeding trial which lasted for six months was carried out to investigate the effect of feeding peeled and cooked sweet potato tuber on hen-day egg production and economics of production of Japanese quails. Five isonitrogenous (20%CP) diets were compounded. The control diet (A) had zero sweet potato tuber meal. In the other four diets, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of maize was replaced with peeled and cooked sweet potato tuber meal. Three hundred point-of-lay female Japanese quail birds were randomly allotted to the diets in a completely randomized design. Feed and water were provided ad libitum for six months. Each diet was allocated to 60 quail chicks, which were further divided into three replicates of 20 birds each to determine the performance characteristics of the quails. Feed intake, body weight change, age at first eggs, age at 50% egg production, age at 75% egg production, hen-day egg production, hen-housed egg production and feed per dozen eggs were similar (p? 0.05) across the diets. Water intake by birds on diet A was significantly (p? 0.05) lower than the birds on the sweet potato diets. Water intake was significantly (p? 0.05) higher by birds on diet D (51.93ml/bird/day) than those on diets A (42.60) and C (46.68mL/bird/day). Total cost of production did not differ significantly across the diets. Gross margin was significantly higher on diet C (N67, 227.64) than on the other diets except for diet D (N65, 795.52). Results showed that peeled and cooked sweet potato can completely replace maize in the diet of laying quails without adverse effects on performance or on economics of production.