Effect of feeding fermented guar meal vis-à-vis toasted guar meal with or without enzyme supplementation on performance of broiler quail

A five week (0 to 5 wks of age) feeding trial was conducted involving three dietary inclusion levels (0, 7.5 and 15%) of toasted guar meal (TGM) with or without enzyme and two levels of fermented toasted guar meal (FTGM) (7.5 and 15.0%) in a standard broiler quail diet. Biological experiment was undertaken in a complete randomized design (CRD) with day old quail chicks (n = 480) assigned to eight dietary treatments (i.e. one control + 7 test diets) in such a way that each treatment had 4 replicates of 15 quail chicks accommodating 60 chicks per treatment. Fungal fermented guar meal was prepared by inoculating spore suspension of Aspergillus niger and incubating substrate containing TGM and water in the ratio of 50:50 for a period of 60 h at 37°C. Fermented TGM was dried, grinded and used in experimental diets. The results of study on growth performance demonstrated that 15% TGM without enzyme supplementation significantly reduced body weight and feed efficiency as compared to other dietary treatments. Results on nutrient utilization indicated that diet containing 15% TGM without enzyme showed comparatively poor nutrient utilization in terms of DM, energy metabolizability, apparent metaboilzable energy (AME), nitrogen, Ca and P retention as compared to other dietary treatments. Cost of feeding in terms of Rs/Kg. body wt. gain and Rs./Kg meat production was similar among different dietary treatments. However, it was numerically lower in 7.5 and 15% FTGM groups as compared to control, enzyme unsupplemented and supplemented groups. The study envisaged that incorporation of 7.5% TGM without enzyme supplementation and 15% TGM with enzyme supplementation or 15% FTGM was beneficial for growth performance of growing quails.