Nutritional potential of honeybee slum gum waste meal on Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) chicks

Abstract

The maize replacement value of honeybee slum gum waste meal (HSWM) was investigated on the growth performance of Japanese quail chicks. Five hundred and forty (540) unsexed Japanese quail chicks were used for the experiment and four diets were formulated. Diet 1 had 0% HSWM while diets 2, 3 and 4 had maize in the control replaced with HSWM at 25, 50 and 75 respectively.  After one week of acclimatization on the control diet, the quail chicks were weighed and randomly allocated to four (4) dietary treatments of three replicates each. Each replicate had forty-five (45) quail chicks to make a total of one hundred and thirty five (135) quail chicks per treatment in a complete randomized experimental design (CRD). The response criteria show that quails on 25 and 50% HSWM had comparable final weights, feed: gain and daily weight with the control. Feed cost decreased linearly as the inclusion of HSWM increases while the cost per kg weight gain decreased linearly to 50% beyond which it became higher. It was concluded that HSWM can replace 50% maize in the quail chicks’ diet.