Carcass characteristics and meat quality of quail given drinking water enriched with a coconut shell liquid smoke grade 1

The research aims to study the effect of the coconut shell liquid smoke (CSLS) in drinking water with different doses on carcass characteristics, physical quality and meat nutritional quality of quail. The research method used a completely randomized design with five treatment groups T0 (control), T1 (0.25mL/L), T2 (0.5ml/L), T3 (0.75ml/L) and T4 (1ml/L). Two Hundred female quails were randomly divided into four replications with ten quails/replication. CSLS is given to quails starting at 5 weeks of age, and at the age of 13 weeks, forty quails were slaughtered (two per replication), after which, the carcasses were weighed and divided into commercial part. Physical quality testing and proximate analysis of meat were carried out on breast meat. The results showed that CSLS at T4 significantly (P<0.05) increased slaughter weight by 204.5±6.13 and carcass weight by 125.7±3.81. Physical meat quality parameters were not significantly affected (P>0.05). In contrast, chemical meat quality was influenced, with differences observed in moisture, ash, and fat content, while protein remained unchanged. In conclusion, grade 1 coconut shell liquid smoke has the potential to be used as a natural additive to improve the carcass quality of female quail.