A total of 672 one day old- female quails was allotted to a completely randomized experimental design, with three treatments (non-trimmed birds; 1/3 of the beak trimmed and cauterized beak), 8 replicates of 28 birds to evaluate the effect of beak trimming and drinking system on productive performance. The birds were beak trimmed at 21 days of age, and at day 35 the weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion and mortality were evaluated. At day 39, 576 quails were transfered to laying cages, and assigned to a 3x2 factorial arrangement, to evaluate three beak trimming methods and two drinking systems (cup and nipple) by using four replicates of 24 birds each. The production phase started when the birds reached 50% egg production, at 60 days of age. The quails submitted to beak trimming by cauterization showed smaller weight and lower feed intake during the initial period. Stress pain due to the cauterized beak can justify not only lower feed intake and lower weight gain, but also increased mortality. It can be inferred that once this method takes more time it has caused more pain and higher levels of stress, worsening the performance of birds. The trimmed to 1/3 of the beaks cut can have caused stress to the birds less intense, without effect on performance. No differences on bird performance and egg quality were observed between drinking systems and beak trimming during the laying phase. In the initial phase, beak trimming system reduced performance, however, during the production phase, both drinking and beak trimming systems do not affect performance and egg quality of Japanese quails.
cauterized beak; cup; management; nipple; quail rearing
