Abstract

A detailed study was undertaken in order to determine the safe dose of mustard seed meal in the diet for Japanese quails which can be used at the production level without having deleterious effects on the Nucleic acid concentration of liver. They were fed different levels of mustard seed meal in isocaloric and isonitrogenous diets. The results of feeding of these diets for 30 days show that there is a graphical increase and decrease in concentration of DNA and RNA which can correlate with the growth of this organ. Therefore increasing the protein/DNA ratio is an established indication of the cell size of liver. In fact the birds on the experimental rations were either comparable or heavier than the control except 5% group.

Key words: Japanese quail, rapeseed meal, nucleic acid, DNA, RNA.