Broken rice in feeds for laying Japanese quails

Abstract

This study evaluated the effect, on productive performance and on egg quality, of replacing corn with broken rice in the feed of 64-148 day-old Japanese quails. The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with five treatments consisting of five inclusion levels of broken rice (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) with eight replicates of eight birds each. No significant differences were observed in productive performance variables across treatments (P > 0.05, all). Regarding egg quality, no significant differences were observed in yolk percentage, specific gravity, or Haugh unit across treatments (P > 0.05 for all parameters). However, yolk color index was negatively affected by dietary rice husk levels (Y = 4.080 - 0.0293X, R² = 98.56%; P < 0.05). Thus, corn can be replaced with up to 100% broken rice in diets for laying Japanese quails without losses in productive performance or egg quality, but corn replacement with broken rice affects yolk color.