Comparative Analysis of Carcass Traits of Two Meat Quail Breeds (Coturnix coturnix)

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the carcass traits of french giant meat quail and savimalt meat quail in order to provide reference for breeding and improvement of meat quail. The results show that french giant meat quail shows far higher body weight, carcass weight, carcass net weight, breast muscle weight (total), leg muscle weight (single) and leg muscles rate compared to savimalt meat quail (P<0.05). Moreover, heart weight, liver weight, slaughter rate, whole net carcass rate, heart rate and breast muscle rate of french giant meat quail are slightly higher than those of savimalt meat quail (P>0.05). For savimalt meat quail, carcass weight shows extremely significantly postive correlations with carcass net weight, heart weight, liver weight, breast muscle weight (total), leg muscle weight (single), slaughter rate and whole net carcass rate (P<0.01), the correlation coefficients are 0.988, 0.596, 0.557, 0.926, 0.899, 0.467 and 0.706, respectively. For the french giant quail, carcass weight shows extremely significantly postive correlations with carcass net weight, liver weight, breast muscle weight (total), leg muscle weight (single) and slaughter rate (P<0.01), the correlation coefficients are 0.949, 0.410, 0.863, 0.590 and 0.395, respectively.