Amino Acid for Japanese Quails: Methodologies and Nutritional Requirement

The methodologies applied to chickens and laying hens, to determine the digestibility and requirement of protein and amino acids are used with quails, however, they need a more careful evaluation due to peculiarities inherent to the Coturnix genus, in order to provide consistent results. The nutritional requirements of the birds are determinate using the dose-response and the factorial method. Several mathematical models and techniques of diet formulation are allied to the dose-response method in determining nutritional requirements. The curvilinear (hyperbolic) models better portray population behaviour in response to increasing nutrient doses in diets. The reading model, allow a better estimation of the requirement, in relation to the mathematical models used in the dose-response method. The techniques of comparative slaughter and nitrogen balance are effective in determining the nutritional requirements of quails, however, the latter need to be corrected by the loss of nitrogen in the feathers in determining the requirements of crude protein and amino acids for maintenance. The protein-free diet, coupled with the industrial amino acid supplementation, provides more robust digestibility values, since it more effectively predicts the endogenous excretion pattern