Vol. 12, Issue 7 (2023)

The study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of Azolla on the Nutrient utilization performance of broiler Japanese quail. A total of one hundred thirty-five day-old broiler Japanese quail chicks were randomly allocated to three treatment groups Based on ICAR (2013) nutrient requirement for poultry, feeding of quail was carried out in two phases i.e. growth phase I (1-3 weeks) and growth phase II (4-5 weeks) for all treatment groups and 3 types of diets were formulated, diet 1 as control (T₀) with no Azolla, diet 2 and 3 contained 5% (T₁) and 10% (T₂) Azolla replacing the ingredients in the control diet on DM basis. The duration of the experiment was 0-5 weeks in the poultry instructional and demonstration unit (PIDU) of the College of veterinary science and animal husbandry, Anjora, Durg in April 2022. The effect of dietary Azolla supplementation was studied on nutrient utilization. All the birds were fed ad libitum during the feeding trial, which lasted 35 days. During the end of the starter and finisher phase, two birds from each replicate were slaughtered. An ileal digesta sample was collected to determine the nutrient digestibility of the Azolla on broiler Japanese quail. The nutrient composition of Azolla was DM -6.7%, CP -24%, crude fat -3.8%, crude fibre- 15%, NFE- 36.3%, Total ash- 16.6 and AIA- 3.64%. The result from this study showed, there was no significant effect of Azolla supplementation on CP metabolizability %. EE metabolizability was lowest in 5% Azolla group and was highest in the 10% Azolla group. The N, Ca and P retention was not altered significantly due to Azolla inclusion in the diet of quails.