Effect of shed rooftype and babassu pie on the productive characteristics of meat quails

We aimed to evaluate the effects of shed roof(SR) typeand the inclusion of babassu pie (BP) in rations on the productive characteristics ofmeat quailsfrom days 14 to 28 and days14 to 40. We studied 896 meatquails. The experimental design was completely randomized with a 4x4 factorial arrangement, using four types of shedroofs (fiber cement, ceramic, straw, and painted fiber cement) and four rations (with 0, 5, 10, and 15% inclusion of babassu pie). The performance variables evaluated from 14 to 28 and 14 to 40 days included food intake (FI, g/bird), mean weight gain (WG, g/bird), food conversion (FC, g/g), mean live weight on day 28 (MW28, g/bird), mean live weight on day 40 (MW40, g/bird), and energy efficiency (EF; g Mcal). After slautherthe birds on day 40, we measured the carcass weight (CW) and the carcass yield (CY, %), obtained for the breast (BY), legs (LGY), and wings (WINGY). We also obtained the relative weight of the heart (HRW), liver (LRW), gizzard (GRW), and intestine (IRW). To compare the economic efficiency between the experimental rations, we analyzed the cost of ration per kg of carcass (CC) and determined the gross margin (GM). Between day 14 and day 28, we found that the use of SR influenced the FI28, WG28, and the MW28 of the quails (p < 0.05). BP did not affect FI28 (p > 0.05), but it linearly improved WG28, FC28, MW28, and EF28. Between days 14 and 40, we found that SR influenced the WG40, FC40, MW40, and EF40 of the quails (p < 0.05) and that a BP increased the FI40, WG40, and MW40 in a quadratic manner. SR and BP did not affect the CW, BY, WINGY, LGY, HRW, LRW,or IRW. However, BP influenced MGRW, which increased linearly with the inclusion of BP. We concluded that a ceramic roof provides better environmental conditions than do other shed roofs. The inclusion of BP improved the performance characteristics, and it was technically feasible to include up to 15% BP in the rations of meat quails. Based on the current cost analysis, however, the inclusion of BP is economically unfeasible.