Abstract
This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of added different levels of common salt in drinking water on the production performance and mortality rate in Japanese quail chicks. A total of 600 one-day old (8.61±0.21 grams) Japanese quail chicks divided into six treatment groups and five replicates of 20 birds per experimental units, based on completely randomized design for 42 days. All groups were fed the same diets and only amount of salt in the water differed. Control group consumed conventional drinking water and other treatments have 1.32, 2.80, 3.80, 5.56 and 7.12 grams of salt per liter which was equal to 233 ppm total dissolved solids (TDS) for control group and 1233, 2233, 3233, 4233 and 5233 ppm for other experimental groups, respectively. The results showed that feed intake (FI), body weight gain (BWG), live body weight (LBW) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were significantly affected by water salinity (p >0.0001). The highest FI and worst FCR were for treatment containing 5233 ppm TDS whereas the best FCR have been observed for treatments containing 233, 1233 and 2233 ppm TDS. The mortality rate also significantly increased by the increasing TDS level in drinked water (p >0.0001). In conclusion, in order to maintain quail chicks performance at economic and acceptable range as well as least mortality, amount of TDS in drinking water should not be more than 2233 ppm.
Highlights
Water quantity and quality are the significant challenges in arid to semi-arid regions of the world including Iran (Madani et al, 2016; VosooghiPostindoz et al, 2018)
Experimental data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) as a completely randomized design (CRD) with six treatments and five replicates for each treatment, using general linear model (GLM) procedure of SAS (2008) and treatment means were compared by Duncan multiple range tests (Steel et al, 1997)
Shanawany et al (1989) examined the effect of amounts of 0, 500, 1000 and 1500 ppm sodium chloride in the drinking water of Japanese quails and concluded that feed intake (FI) decreases as salt concentration increases
Summary
Water quantity and quality are the significant challenges in arid to semi-arid regions of the world including Iran (Madani et al, 2016; VosooghiPostindoz et al, 2018). Althogh there is several researches in term of drinking saline water on health and production performance of meat and egg type poultries (Julian 1987; Barton 1996; Pourreza et al, 2000; Chen and Balnave 2001; Honarbakhsh et al, 2007; Kiani and Feizi 2008; Dai et al, 2009; Ahmed, 2013; Alahgholi et al, 2014; Elsaidy et al, 2015), but there is a little studies on the effect of water salinity on performance of Japanese quail (Shanawany et al, 1989; Erener et al, 2002). This study was conducted to determine the effects of increasing TDS level of water by adding different levels of sodium chloride (common salt) to the water on production performance and mortality rate of Japanese quails. Experimental data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) as a completely randomized design (CRD) with six treatments and five replicates for each treatment, using general linear model (GLM) procedure of SAS (2008) and treatment means were compared by Duncan multiple range tests (Steel et al, 1997)
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