Investigation of the effect of different levels of gamma-irradiated cottonseed meal on production performance and egg quality in Japanese quail

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of gamma ray irradiated cottonseed meal on production performance and external and internal quality traits of quail eggs. A total of 144 pieces of Japanese quail were distributed to 4 experimental treatments with 6 replications in a completely randomized design. Experimental diets included diets without gamma-irradiated cottonseed meal (control treatment) and diets containing levels of 7.5, 15 and 22.5 percent of gamma-irradiated cottonseed meal. During the experimental period, weekly feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio were recorded and at the end of week 4, 2 eggs were selected from each replicate and the traits related to the external and internal quality of eggs were examined. The results showed that 40 kg dose of gamma rays could reduce the total and free gossypol of raw cottonseed meal (37.47 and 0.14 compared to 679.31 and 42.94). Addition of different levels of gamma-irradiated cottonseed meal did not have a significant effect on production yield, external and internal quality traits of quail eggs in different treatments at 70 days (p>0.05). The results of this study showed that irradiation of 40 kg dose of gamma rays to cottonseed meal can reduce the concentration of total and free gossypol and its consumption in the diet will not have a negative effect on quail performance and quail egg characteristics. The level of 22.5% of dietary protein with irradiated meal has no negative effect on production performance and external and internal quality traits of quail eggs.