Lysine requirement for laying Japanese quails

Three hundred 49-days old Japanese female quails, averaging 138.0 g, were used during four experimental periods of 28 days. A completely randomized block design, with six levels of digestible lysine (0.80, 0.90, 1.00, 1.10, 1.20 and 1.30%) and five replicates of ten females per experimental unit, was used. Egg production (%), egg weight (g), egg mass (g of eggs/quail/day), feed intake (g), feed intake: weight gain ratio (g of diet/g of eggs), final body weight (a) and shell percentage (%) were evaluated. No signicant effect of treatments on final body weight (g) was observed, but there was quadratic effect for egg production (%), egg mass (g of eggs/quail/day) and feed consumption: gain diet (g of diet/g of eggs) and linear effect on shell egg (%) and feed intake (g). The estimated requirement of digestible lysine for laying Japanese quail was 1.117% of the diet, corresponding to a daily intake of 254 mg of digestible lysine.