Currently, there are about 20 wild quail colonies in the world, mainly including two species of wild common quails and wild Japanese quails (
Pang, 2009;
Du, 2014). There are two categories of domesticated quails; one being the experimental quail which is mainly used in scientific experiments because of its small body size, high performances, quick reproduction, short test period, strong disease resistance and good sensitivity. Currently, “sterile quail”, “inbred line quail” and “SPF quail” have been developed (
Liu, 2005). The other type is commodity quail which can further be divided into egg-laying quail and meet-type quail. The important Egg-laying quails are Japanese quail, Korea quail, Beijing white quail and China yellow quail. They have male and female quail systems. Quail is an ideal animal model for biological safety evaluation. Moreover, it is a good material for genetic experimentation. The experimental values of quail in teaching and scientific studies are increasing gradually
(Song et al., 2000, 2003,
2004;
Pang et al., 2001a,
2001b;
Bai et al., 2016a,
2016b,
2016c,
2016d,
2017). In this paper, growth and development of China yellow quail, Korea quail and Beijing white quail under the same breeding conditions were studied.
Experimental materials
100 quails, from each species i.e. (China yellow quail, Korea quail and Beijing white quail) were collected for incubation. The incubated egg-laying quails were numbered and grouped by tags, 10 quails per group. Thus, five experimental groups were acquired. They were fed same feeds at fixed time in the morning and evening every day. Quails were free to eat feed and drink water as per their need. Temperature in the quail shed was controlled and ventilation was supplied. The indoor and outdoor sanitation and hygiene were maintained, accompanied with regular quarantine and timely disease prevention and treatment. The experiment started with 1 week old quails. Growth and development of quails were observed in the appointed quail shed in the pasture of the Zhoushan Campus. Early growth and development of 3 quail species were measured at the same time on each Saturday.
Analysis of data
Multi-factor analysis of variance was accomplished using SPSS 17.0 and Duncan method was used for multiple comparisons.
Comparison of early growth and development performance of quails
Comparisons of early development among different egg-laying quail species are shown in Table 1. Comparisons of early growth and development traits among three species showed that the Korea quail achieved significantly (P≤0.05) higher body weight, shank length, chest width, chest depth, breastbone length and body length compared to rest two species. The body weight, shank length, chest width, chest depth, breastbone length and body length of China yellow quail were much higher than those of Beijing white quail (P≤0.05). The Korea quail had greatly higher shank circumference and daily gain than other two species (P≤0.05). However, China yellow quail and Beijing white quail had no significant differences in these two parameters (P≤0.05).
According to Fig 1, body weight of all three species increased gradually with the increase of weekly age (1~7 Week). Besides, the body weight of Korea quail was always higher than those of rest two species. The shank length of all three species increased gradually from 1 week of age to 4 week of age. After 5 weeks of age, the growth rate of shank length decreased. The shank length of Korea quail was always higher than that of China yellow quail and the shank length of China yellow quail was higher than that of Beijing white quail.
Li et al., (2010) measured and analyzed the growth and development traits of Korea quail, found that the growth rate of body weight and body size of female quail was significantly higher than that of male quail before 38 weeks of age. At 38 weeks of age, the average body weights of male and female quails were 109.38g and 117.92g respectively.
Taskin et al., (2017) showed that quails of different weight had the following differences: Significant differences were observed for total egg production and egg width for Group X Generation’s interactions.
Shank cirumference of all the three species increased quickly from 1 week of age to 4 week of age (Fig 2). This growth rate decreased after 5 weeks of age. The shank circumference of Korea quail was higher than that of China yellow quail and Beijing white quail throughout the experimental period. From 1 week of age to 4 week of age, chest width of three species increased quickly. The chest width of Korea quail was always higher than that of the rest two species. Fig 3 showed that chest depth and breastbone length of three species were growing quickly with the increase of week old. Chest depth and breastbone length of Korea quail and China yellow quail were significantly higher than those of Beijing white quail. It could be concluded from Fig 4 that body length of all three species increased quickly from 1 week of age to 4 week of age. Such growth rate decreased gradually after 5 weeks of age. The body length of Korea quail was higher than that of other two species from 1 week of age to 7 week of age. Daily gain of three species from 1 week of age to 3 week of age. Increased quickly, but it decreased gradually after 4 weeks of age. The daily gain of Korea quail is higher compared to rest two species from 1 week of age to 6 week of age.
Correlation analysis between growth and development traits of quail
Table 2 revealed that daily gain of quails was slightly correlated with other traits, but not reached the significance level. Shank circumference was moderately correlated with body weight, shank length, chest width, chest depth, breastbone length and body length and the correlation coefficients were 0.582, 0.603, 0.556, 0.544, 0.586 and 0.568, respectively.
Jiao et al., (2001) discovered that body sizes (e.g. chest width, chest depth and body length) of Japan quail were very significantly correlated with body weight and shank length, breastbone length was significantly correlated with body weight.
Pang et al., (2008) discussed correlation between body weight and body size of Korea quail. They found that breastbone length and body length were very significantly correlated with body weight of male quail, while shank length and chest depth had extremely significant correlation with body weight of female quail.
Pang et al., (2009) carried out a correlation analysis on growth and development traits (e.g. body weight and size) of egg-laying yellow-feather quail. They concluded that the correlations between body size and body weight of male quail were: body length>shank length>chest width>chest depth> breastbone length and the correlations between size and body weight of female quail were: body length>breastbone length>chest width>chest depth> shank length. These research conclusions supported the results in this study. It was concluded that the Korea quail was significantly superior to China yellow quail and Beijing white quail in term of early growth and development traits, such as body weight, shank length, shank circumference, chest width, chest depth, breastbone length, body length and daily gain. At 7 weeks of age, the growth rates of body weight and size of all three species tended to be stable. However, the body weight had obvious growth and quails entered the egg producing period.
