Indian Journal of Animal Research

Five weeks old layer Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) birds (180 nos) were randomly distributed into 4 dietary groups with 3 replicates each for 98 days to study the effect of dietary inclusion of acid ensiled fish waste silage on the production performance, egg quality, feed cost, and serum biochemical profile. Fish meal in control diet was replaced by supplementing fish silage at 3%, 6% and 12% of the diet. Significant increase in egg production (p<0.05) and the lowest feed conversion ratio were recorded when birds were fed with 3% silage. But the egg production or feed conversion ratio was not adversely affected by 6% or 12% inclusion of fish silage. Egg quality attributes like weight, shape index, Haugh score, albumen index or yolk index didnot differ significantly with the increasing content of silagein the feed. They olk concentration increased significantly (p<0.05) with increase in fish silage in the diet. The concentration of serum biochemical constituents (total protein, albumen, globulin, cholesterol, triglyceride, alkaline phosphatase, urea and creatinine concentration) did not vary significantly (p>0.05) among the treatments. Serum glucose concentration was the highest in birds fed with 3% fish silage. Lowest cost of feed/kg egg mass was obtained by inclusion of 3% of fish silage in the diet. It was concluded that acid ensilage from freshwater fish waste can replace fishmeal in layer Japanese quail diets without affecting the production of birds besides resulting in reduction of feed cost.