Egg shelf life, welfare, and physiological responses in Jumbo quail hens fed a diet containing raw or heat-treated cassava tuber meal

Abstract

The study assessed the effect of total replacement of maize with raw or heat-treated cassava tuber meal (CTM) on egg shelf life, welfare indicators, and physiological and carcass traits of laying jumbo quail hens. Two hundred and forty, six-week-old quail hens (191±16.60 g initial body weight) were reared in 60 cages (four hens/cage) to produce 12 replicates per dietary treatment. The diets were a standard layer diet (CON) and CON where maize was completely replaced with raw (CTMR), autoclaved (CTMA), boiled (CTMB), and oven-dried CTM (CTMO). On day 5 of storage, birds on CON produced eggs with the highest breaking strength and the lowest was from CTMR group. Similarly, birds fed CTMR had the lowest albumen height on day 5. On day 10, eggs from birds on CTMA had the lowest albumen pH and the highest was from CON. There were no dietary effects on egg weight, yolk height, haemato-biochemical parameters, and visceral morphometry of the hens. A Kruskal-Wallis H test revealed no treatment effects on gait and feather scores but showed an effect on latency-to-lie test. Birds fed CON had larger carcass weights than those fed CTMR and CTMB. Diet CON caused lower 24-h breast meat pH than CTMB. Although hens fed with the maize-control diet showed optimal egg quality and carcass performance, autoclaving and oven-drying treatments were more effective than the raw or boiled CTM treatments. The treatments did not compromise welfare, blood parameters, or visceral morphometry of the hens.