Effect of the dietary inclusion of Camelina sativa cake into quail diet on live performance, carcass traits, and meat quality

The present research studied the effect of the dietary inclusion of 3 different camelina (Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz) cakes on the live performance, slaughter traits, and breast meat quality of broiler quails (Coturnix japonica). With this purpose, a total of 480 fifteen-day-old broiler quails of both sexes were allocated to 48 cages (12 replicates/treatment, 10 quails/repli-cate) and received 4 dietary treatments: a control diet (Control), and 3 diets containing 15% of 1 commercial cultivar (Calena), and 2 improved lines (Pearl: low lino-leic acid; Alan: low glucosinolates). During the experi-ment, individual live weight (LW) and cage feed intake were recorded to calculate body weight gain (BWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR). At 35 d of age, quails were slaughtered, and carcasses were weighed and dis-sected to compute yields. On breast (pectoralis major muscle) the measurements and analyses considered ulti-mate pH, L*a*b* color values, proximate composition, oxidative status, cooking loss and WBSF toughness. Broiler quails receiving diets with camelina cakes exhib-ited mortality and health status similar to the control. However, growth performance was impaired in camel-ina-fed groups, especially for Calena (P < 0.05). Overall LW and BWG were slightly lower, whereas feed intake was slightly higher in camelina-fed groups compared to Control (P > 0.05). Therefore, higher FCR was recorded for camelina-fed groups compared to Control (P = 0.0004). Moreover, breast meat from Calena treat-ment displayed higher water (P = 0.0170), and lower lipid (P = 0.0051) contents compared to those of the Control group, while protein and ash content remained unaffected. Heme-iron content and oxidative status of breast meat were not influenced by the dietary incorpo-ration of camelina (P > 0.05). The research outcomes indicated that camelina cakes can be used as an alterna-tive feed ingredient for broiler quails' diets, without compromising carcass yields and meat quality. However, as 15% dietary incorporation worsened live performance, the ideal camelina cake inclusion level should be thor-oughly investigated as well as a parallel research effort into further reducing glucosinolates content of camelina.