Performance of Japanese Quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica) on Floor and Cage Rearing System in Sylhet, Bangladesh: Comparative Study

A total number of 66 day old Japanese quail chicks divided into 2 treatment groups (33 in each treatment) with 3 replications in each having 11 birds (male, 5 and female, 6) were reared on floor and in cage system for a period of 5 weeks to know the effect of rearing system on growth performance and carcass characteristics. At the age of 35 days, average body weight and feed intake were 102.15 and 320.7 g/quail for cage and 78.41 and 146.02 g/quail for floor system, respectively. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) was 3.89 and 4.10 for cage and floor system, respectively (P 0.01), at the end of study period. Body weight, feed intake and FCR were significantly (P 0.01) different between cage and floor rearing system. At the age of 21 and 35 days survivability were 72.72 and 72.72% for cage and 63.63 and 60.60% for floor, respectively. There was higher survivability in cage system. In case of meat yield characteristics, average weight of breast, thigh, wing, drum stick were 20.92, 7.37, 5.42 and 5.72 g for cage and 20.84, 7.35, 5.39 and 5.63 g for floor, respectively. There were no significant difference among average weight of breast, thigh and drum stick between two rearing system. In case of sex average, wing weight differed among sexes. It was concluded that cage reared quails showed better performance compared to littered floor rearing system.