Effect of rubber seed meal on the meat composition, hepatic and serum enzyme activities of Japanese quails

Abstract

This study evaluated the effect of dietary replacement of processed rubber seed meal (RSM) for soybean on the meat composition, hepatic and serum enzyme activities of growing Japanese quails. Boiled and toasted RSM were incorporated into the quail’s diet as replacement for soybean meal at 50 and 100% each. Five experimental diets were formulated such that treatment 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 contained 0% RSM, 50% Boiled RSM, 100% boiled RSM, 50% toasted RSM and 100% RSM as replacement for soybean meal, respectively. A total of 300, one-week old Japanese chicks were allotted to the five treatments, comprising of 60 chicks per treatment. Each treatment was further sub-divided into three replicates of 20 chicks per replicate. All birds were managed under the same environmental conditions as approved by the Animal Care and Ethical Committee of University of Calabar throughout the six weeks of experiment. At the end of the feeding trial, four birds were randomly picked per replicate (12 per treatment) and used for meat composition, hepatic and serum activity analyses. Data collected were subjected to the one-way ANOVA in a completely randomized design and significant means were separated using the least significant difference method. Results showed that increasing RSM up to 100% in quails diets had deleterious effects (P<0.05) on the hepatic and serum enzyme activities of quail indicative of compromised health status, whereas their breast meat composition was not altered. This study concludes that for improved quail health and meat composition, up to 50% boiled rubber seed meal should be incorporated into quail diets.