Abstract:
The study was conducted at the poultry farm in the Department of Animal
Resources - College of Agriculture - University of Diyala during the Autumn
season of 2014, to determine and compare the productive performance of the
three varieties of Japanese quail : black, white and brown, under the local
natural environmental conditions in Iraq. Used in the study, 329 one day chicks
belong to the three varieties, and the experiment was designed according to the
Completely Randomized Design ( CRD ) with three replicates for each variety.
Measurements were recorded for the following traits: The weight of the chick at
hatching, weekly live body weight, weekly weight gain, weekly feed intake, and
feed conversion efficiency.
The results showed a highly significant (P <0.01) superiority of black
variety in live body weight, compared with white and brown varieties at ages 1,
2 and 3 weeks, furthermore, the results recorded that this superiority has
vanished at the age of 6 weeks, therefore, the body weight of black, white and
brown varieties at 6 weeks of age became 179.69, 171.65 and 175.88 g
respectively. The results recorded that there is a high significant superiority in
feed consumption of the black variety with compare to other varieties in the
weeks 1, 2 and 6 weeks. Black variety superiority on the white variety in the
feed conversion during the first four weeks was also observed. The results
indicated that weight gain is becoming very few in the seventh week, which
indicates to select the age of 6 weeks as a market age
