Pin Chanjula, Charnwit Benjama, and Sutha Wattanasit

pp. 257 - 265

Abstract

Kluai Hin banana peel meal (KHBPM) contained 92.70% dry matter, 5.61% crude protein, 6.66%
crude fat, 9.32% crude fiber, 10.90% ash, 60.21% NFE, 0.37% Ca, 0.22% P and 1.25% tannin on dry basis
and 4,362 Kcal GE/kg.
It was incorporated into 8 Japanese quail diets at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35%. Three hundred and
thirty head of 5-weeks-old birds were randomly allotted to 8 treatments each with 4 replicates (10 quails/
replicate), fed with the above mentioned diets until 20 weeks of age. The results showed no significant (p>
0.05) difference among treatments in terms of their ages at first laying, egg production, egg weight, feed
efficiency and feed consumption and feed cost when KHBPM was included up to 25% of the diet. However, treatment at the higher levels (>25% KHBPM), gave significantly (p<0.01) lower egg production and quality,
feed efficiency and egg shell thickness. In addition it also gave higher feed cost (p<0.05). The average
mortality rate was 0.86% and no significant difference was found among groups. Egg quality and egg yolk
color-score appeared to decrease with increasing KHBPM level. From these results, it is concluded that 20-
25% KHBPM or 50.5% substation to ground corn was the optimum level for laying quails. It should be used
as animal feed to reduce pollution problem.