The objective of the present study was to estimate and compare allometric coefficients of the major chemical components of meat quail raised in different thermal environments, based on protein weight of feather free body (FFB) and feathers. In total, 300 meat quail, males and females, were distributed in a completely randomized design with 2 treatments (climatized environment, 26°C, and non-climatized environment, 29°C) and 6 replicates of 25 birds each. On the first day, 36 birds were selected to form the reference group and from this day on, 2 quail were weekly sampled from each cage. All selected birds were fasted for 24 h, weighed, slaughtered, plucked, and reweighed. The FFB and feathers were ground separately to obtain homogeneous samples, which were freeze-dried to determine the water content, and thereafter, ground again in a micromill before analyzing for protein, lipid, and ash using AOAC procedures. The adjustment of the allometric equations was made using crude protein (CP) weight as the independent variable and water, lipid, and ash weight as the dependent variables. The data of each dependent variable were transformed into natural logarithm (ln), regressed according to lnCP, and subjected to a parallelism test. In the FFB, water showed early development and lipid and ash showed late development in relation to the CP weight. In feathers, water and ash weight showed early development in relation to the feathers protein weight, whereas lipids showed late development. The environments of 26°C and 29°C did not affect the allometric coefficients that described the growth between the chemical components in the body and in the feathers, except for lipids in male FFB, that showed higher allometric coefficient at 29°C than 26°C. Describing the allometric relationships between the major chemical components of meat quail body is an important step in supporting future research comprised modeling of body growth and nutrition for meat quail.

中文翻译：

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不同热环境下肉鹌鹑主要化学成分的异速生长系数。

本研究的目的是根据羽毛游离体 (FFB) 和羽毛的蛋白质重量估计和比较在不同热环境中饲养的肉鹌鹑主要化学成分的异速生长系数。总共有 300 只肉鹌鹑，雄性和雌性，以完全随机的设计分布，有 2 个处理（气候环境，26°C，非气候环境，29°C）和 6 个重复，每个重复 25 只鸟。第一天，选择 36 只鸟作为参考组，从这一天开始，每周从每个笼子中抽取 2 只鹌鹑样本。所有选定的鸡只禁食 24 小时、称重、屠宰、拔毛并重新称重。将 FFB 和羽毛分别研磨以获得均质样品，将其冷冻干燥以测定水分含量，然后，在使用 AOAC 程序分析蛋白质、脂质和灰分之前，在微型磨机中再次研磨。异速生长方程的调整使用粗蛋白（CP）重量作为自变量，水、脂质和灰分重量作为因变量。将每个因变量的数据转化为自然对数（ln），按照lnCP进行回归，并进行平行度检验。在 FFB 中，相对于 CP 重量，水表现出早期发育，脂质和灰分表现出晚期发育。在羽毛中，水和灰分的重量相对于羽毛蛋白质的重量表现出早期发育，而脂质则表现出晚期发育。26°C 和 29°C 的环境不影响描述身体和羽毛中化学成分之间生长的异速生长系数，除了雄性 FFB 中的脂质，其在 29°C 时的异速生长系数高于 26°C。描述肉鹌鹑身体主要化学成分之间的异速生长关系是支持未来研究的重要一步，包括肉鹌鹑的身体生长和营养建模。