HAEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF JAPANESE QUAILS (Coturnix coturnix japonica) FED DIETS CONTAINING RUBBER (Hevea brasiliensis) SEED MEAL BOILED AT VARYING DURATIONS

Abstract

This study evaluated the effect of feeding diets containing raw and boiled rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) seed meal basal diets on the haematology profile of Japanese quail chicks. Six (6) diets were formulated in which the control diet (T1) had no rubber seed meal, T2 contained raw rubber seed meal at 20 % level while the other diets contained rubber seed meal boiled for 30, 40, 50 and 60 minutes which represents T3, T4, T5 and T6 respectively. Four hundred and fourteen (414) two weeks old unsexed Japanese quails were allocated to the six dietary treatments each having three replicates of 23 birds in a Completely Randomized Design. The experiment lasted for 4 weeks. Blood samples were collected from the birds the wing web vein at the 6th week of the feeding trial. The results obtained in this study showed that all the haematological profile of birds were significantly (p<0.05) influenced by the dietary treatments except Packed Cell Volume, haemoglobin, basophils, neutrophils, eosinophil, mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH). The results suggest that raw rubber seed meal (RRSM) and rubber seed meal boiled (BRSM) at varying durations possess good dietary protein quality for optimal growth and had no adverse effect on haematological parameters of quails at 20 % dietary level of inclusion.