Amino Acid for Japanese Quails: Methodologies and Nutritional Requirement

Abstract

The methodologies applied to chickens and laying hens, to determine the digestibility and requirement of protein and amino acids are used with quails, however, they need a more careful evaluation due to peculiarities inherent to the Coturnix genus, in order to provide consistent results. The nutritional requirements of the birds are determinate using the dose-response and the factorial method. Several mathematical models and techniques of diet formulation are allied to the dose-response method in determining nutritional requirements. The curvilinear (hyperbolic) models beter portray population behaviour in response to increasing nutrient doses in diets. The reading model, allow a beter estimation of the requirement, in relation to the mathematical models used in the dose-response method. The techniques of comparative slaughter and nitrogen balance are efective in determining the nutritional requirements of quails, however, the later need to be corrected by the loss of nitrogen in the feathers in determining the requirements of crude protein and amino acids for maintenance. The protein-free diet, coupled with the industrial amino acid supplementation, provides more robust digestibility values, since it more efectively predicts the endogenous excretion patern.

An Alternative Approach to the Surface Methacrylation of Non-stoichiometric Hydroxyapatite Nanoparticles for Use in Bone-Inspired Composites

“…ATR-FTIR spectroscopy (Figure 2) of the two methacrylated powders shows evidence of additional peaks (compared to native nHA) that correspond to the presence of methacrylate groups. ATR-FTIR spectroscopy confirmed the carbonatesubstitution of the native, non-stoichiometric nHA with peaks at 1,423 and 1,457 cm −1 attributed to asymmetric stretching modes of carbonate groups which replaced the tetrahedral phosphate sites (Figueiredo et al, 2012;Tkalčec et al, 2014). The broad peak at 1,642 cm −1 for native nHA is attributed to free residual water (H-O-H) (Zou et al, 2012), which following methacrylation is less evident in the MAh-nHA and GMA-nHA samples.…”