EFFECT OF SOAKED AND FERMENTED SORGHUM AS A REPLACEMENT FOR MAIZE ON PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF JAPANESE QUAILS (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

A five weeks feeding trial was carried out to investigate the effect of sorghum as a replacement for maize on growth and carcass characteristics of Japanese quail chicks using ninety one - week old Japanese quail chicks. The birds were randomly divided into five dietary groups of 18 birds per treatment and 6 birds per replicate in a completely randomized design. The formulated five maize - based diets were substituted with soaked and fermented sorghum at 0 (T1 control), 25 (T2 soaked), 25 (T3fermented) 50 (T4, soaked).and 50 % (T5 fermented). Feed and water were offered ad libitum. Results showed that dietary treatments had significant (P 0.05) different across the treatments. No significantly different mortality was observed across the treatment groups. Carcass characteristics and organ weights were significantly (P<0.05) affected by dietary treatments except  dressing percentage, thigh (%), wings (%), gizzard (%), small intestine (%) and large intestine. Live weight was significantly (P<0.05) lower in birds fed diet T 5 (50% fermented sorghum) compared to other treatments while carcass weight and dressed weight were significantly (P<0.05) lower in birds fed processed sorghum based diets compared to those in the control group. For the organ weights, the heart (%) was significantly (P<0.05) higher in birds fed T 2 compared to those of other treatments while birds on the control diet had significantly (P<0.05) higher liver (%) weight. Therefore, it was concluded that the control diet containing maize was significantly better in all the parameters measured compared to sorghum based diets. However, among the sorghum based diet birds on 25% soaked and 25% soaked and fermented sorghum were better compared to other diets.