Growth Response, Carcass Characteristics and Meat Quality of Japanese Quail Fed Diet with Alfalfa

This study was conducted to determine the performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of Japanese quail fed diets supplemented with Alfalfa. The experiment was carried out in the form of completely randomized design with diet consisted of the basal diet as the control (0 Alfalfa), diets with Alfalfa at 1.5% (15 g/kg) and 3% (30 g/kg). Four replicates with 15 quails were allocated to each experimental treatment and the birds were reared for 42 days. The diets were formulated according to NRC (1994) guidelines and contained 24% protein and 2900 kcal/kg ME. The results showed that weight gain and feed intake was significantly affected by levels of Alfalfa (p < 0.05). Feed conversion ratio was significantly improved in quails fed with 1.5% Alfalfa compared to quails fed 0 and 3% Alfalfa. There was no significant difference for percentage of carcass composition among experimental treatments. Also the results showed that adding various levels of Alfalfa were influenced meat characteristic such as redness, yellowness, lightness and water holding capacity in Japanese quail.