PRODUCCIÓN DE CODORNICES (COTURNIX COTURNIX) SOMETIDAS A DIFERENTES PROGRAMAS DE ILUMINACIÓN

The objective of this work was to make an evaluation of the effects of programs of continuous and intermittent illumination on the index of egg production of quails Coturnix coturnix. The experiment was carried out in the Farm Santo Antonio in Lavras-MG, Brazil. 24600 quails were used, with 42 days of age at the beginning of the experiment. The intermittent program used a regime with three phases of illumination in 17 hours and a period of the dark of seven hours. The lamps ignited in the morning to five, extinguished to the dawn and ignited again to 17:30 and extinguished to 22:00. The continuous program of illumination presented a phase of illumination of 17 hours and phase of the dark of seven hours. The evaluated measures of performance were the feed intake (g/birth/day), egg production (eggs/bird/week), loss of eggs (%), weight of eggs (g), weight of the bird (g), nutritional conversion by egg weight (g/g) and by dozen of eggs produced (g/dz), mass of eggs (g/birth/day), deaths by prolapse (%), gonadosomatic and hepatosomatic indexes (%) and the viability (%). The data were analyzed SAS (1995). Significant difference between the treatments (P 0.05) for the other evaluated measures of performance. The use of the system of intermittent illumination in quails was highly efficient and viable.