Ovary and reproductive tract morphometry of Japanese quails submitted to different hours of light

• Grant number: 19/27039-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2020
• End date: July 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Silvana Martinez Baraldi Artoni
• Grantee: Ana Clara Cogo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias (FCAV). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Jaboticabal. Jaboticabal , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Coturniculture is a branch of poultry where quails are bred for egg or meat production. Considering the zootechnical and morphological importance of this species, the present study proposed to evaluate oviduct morphometry of Japanese quail from 28 to 56 days of age submitted to two lighting environments and to correlate glandular development of oviduct with the number of hours of light provided ( 16 and 24 hours). Also, measure the weight of the ovary and quantify the number of eggs and weigh the livers at 28, 35, 42 and 56 days. It was also proposed to verify the influence of oviduct weight and length in relation to the number of hours of light and to perform a histological evaluation of the number and diameter of sperm storage glands at 56 days of age.The experiment will be conducted in the poultry sector of the School of Agrarian and Veterinary Sciences, UNESP, Jaboticabal Campus, and all histological analyzes performed in the Department of Morphology and Animal Physiology. Ninety six female Japanese quails, between 28 and 56 days old, will be used, distributed in a completely randomized design (DIC) with two treatments (T1 - control with 16 hours of light per day; T2 - 24 hours of light per day). day) and six repetitions, totaling 12 experimental units with 8 birds / cage. All quails will receive feed formulated according to their nutritional requirements and production phase based on Rostagno et al (2011). Each week one bird from each repetition of the two treatments will be randomly selected, weighed and euthanized by cervical dislocation. After euthanasia the birds will be taken to the Necropsy Sector of the Department of Animal Morphology for the procedure of opening the quail's abdominal cavity, locating the ovary and oviduct. They will be removed entirely to quantify the number of eggs and collect the infundibulum-magnum and uterus-vagina junctions of the oviduct, and all procedure will be performed with the aid of appropriate utensils and clothing. For histology and morphometry of the infundibulum-magnus and uterus-vagina junctions, images of the histological sections of the slides of each treatment will be captured with the aid of an Olympus SC30 micro-camera attached to the microscope and later stored in a drive, and these images will be transferred to a microcomputer and analyzed with the aid of Olympus CellSens Standard software, version 510 - CellSens 1.16, from UNESP's Department of Animal Morphology and Physiology. The data will be submitted to ANOVA and in case of significance the means will be compared by Tukey test at 5% probability by the SAS version 9.3 statistical software (SAS, 2011).