Nutritional evaluation of shrimp waste and its inclusion in laying diet for European quails

Abstract

Abstract The present research aimed to evaluate the shrimp waste meal (SWM) in the diet of European quails in the production phase. Firstly, a metabolism trial was carried out with 96 quails of 28 days of age distributed in an completely randomized design (CRD) with three treatments (reference diet and two test diets in which SWM replaced 20% and 40% of the reference diet) and four replications of eight birds. It was observed that the nutritional composition of SWM is within the variation found in the literature, differing only in the sodium content. There was no difference in apparent metabolizable energy (AME) and apparent corrected for nitrogen balance (AMEn) values. In the performance trial 200 quails of 28 weeks of age were distributed in a CRD with four treatments (0, 5, 10 and 15.0% of inclusion of SWM) and five replications of ten birds. There was reduction in the nitrogen metabolization coefficient (NMC) with the inclusion of 15% SWM. The feed intake, production and egg mass worsened with 15% inclusion, causing a linear reduction of these variables. The inclusion of SWM at all levels reduced the values of specific gravity and Hugh units, and the level 15% promoted reduction in shell percentage and shell thickness. No difference was observed on any of the economic variables. It was concluded that the AMEn of SWM is 2,377 kcal/kg DM and that the inclusion of SWM in the diet of quails in production can be up to 10%.