Effect of feeding cashew nut kernel meal on growth performance and carcass characteristics in Japanese quails

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of feeding ration containing cashew nut kernel meal (CNKM) at 0.0 (T₁; Control), 5.0 (T₂), 10.0 (T₃), 15.0 (T₄) and 20% (T⁵) levels on growth performance and carcass parameters in Japanese quails. One-hundred-and-fifty-day-old quail chicks were randomly allocated to five dietary treatments containing three replicates of ten chicks each (n=30 chicks/ group) and reared for a period of five weeks. All the diets were iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous. The results revealed that the performance of all the experimental groups was similar in terms of feed intake, efficiency and protein efficiency ratio, while higher body weight gain (P<0.01) and performance index (P<0.05) were observed in the T₅ group compared to the control. Further, carcass trait yields were statistically similar among the groups. The feed cost/kg gain (₹) decreased by 1.30, 3.67, 7.21 and 11.5 in T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅, respectively, as compared to the control. It is concluded that cashew nut kernel meal can be included up to 20% in the quail diet.