Effect of dietary supplementation of clove (Syzygium aromaticum) powder at varying levels on growth performance and carcass characteristics of japanese quails

The present investigation was carried out to study the effect of supplementation of clove powder at different levels on growth performance, carcass characteristics and production economics in Japanese quails. In a 5-week trial, 150-day old quail chicks were allotted at random to five different treatments each containing three replicates with ten chicks/replicate. The quail chicks were offered a basal diet to meet the nutrient requirements as per NRC (1994) specifications. During the experiment, different levels of clove powder were added to the basal diet as follows: Basal diet (T₁), basal diet + 0.25% CP (T₂), basal diet + 0.5% CP (T₃), basal diet + 0.75% CP (T₄), basal diet + 1.0% CP (T₅). Results indicated that supplementation of clove powder up to 1.0% level in the diet had no effect (P>0.05) on body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, performance index (PI), protein efficiency ratio (PER) and carcass characteristics of quails as compared to the control. However, the PI and PER increased numerically in quails with supplementation of clove powder up to 1.0% level in the diet as compared to control. Thus, it is concluded that clove powder supplementation up to 1.0% level in the diet and can act as alternate to antibiotic growth promoters in quail.