Levels of supplementation of inorganic selenium and vitamin E for meat quail aged 0 to 14 and 14 to 35days.

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out to determine the levels of supplementation of inorganic selenium (Se) and vitamin E (VE) in diets of quails aged 0-14 and 14-35 days old. A completely randomized design was used in a factorial design (Se=0.1125; 0.2250; 0.3375 and 0.4500mgkg-1 diet-1 ×VE=10; 23; 36 and 49IUkg-1 diet-1 ). In experiment 1, quail (n=2,400) were aged 0-14days and were divided into 16 treatments, with three replicates of 50 birds. In experiment 2, quail (n=1,680) were aged 14-35days and were divided into the same treatments, with three replicates of 35 birds. At age 0-14days, the levels of VE did not affect performance (p>.05); however, the feed conversion (FC) was influenced by a quadratic effect (p=.0515), according to the level of Se, with a higher level estimated at 0.29mg Sekg-1 diet-1 . At age 14-35days, there was a linear effect with interaction (Se×VE), for FC (p=.0150) and weight gain (WG; p=.0266). FC (Se, p=.0048 and VE, p=.0019) and WG (Se, p=.0049 and VE, p=.0068) improved linearly with increasing levels of Se and VE. The feed intake (FI) decreased linearly (p=.0582) as a function of VE. The carcass yield showed a quadratic effect (p=.0056) on the levels of VE, with a higher yield estimation of 27.24 IU VE/kg of diet. It can be concluded that the optimum level of supplementation at age 0-14days was 0.29mg Sekg-1 diet-1 and 10IU VEkg-1 diet-1 and at age 14-35days, it was 0.4500mg Sekg-1 diet-1 and 49IU of VEkg-1 diet-1 .