The present study was conducted to study the effects of dietary amino acid and metabolizable energy (ME) levels on the performance of Hinai-dori at different ages, and to obtain the basic information of Hinai-dori preceding a series of experiment to determine the requirement of individual essential amino acids.
Three Hinai-dori chicks of both sexes per dietary group were confined individually in wire cages and were fed the experimental diets ad libitum from 7 to 21, 42 to 56 and 77 to 91 days of age in Experiments 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Experiments have a 3×5 factorial arrangement of treatment with three ME and five amino acid levels. The body weight and feed intake were recorded on the 14th day on the experimental diet.
There was no sexual difference in the response to dietary amino acid and ME levels for any of the parameters determined. The body weight gain and feed efficiency were improved with increasing of amino acid levels. The feed intake was not affected by amino acid levels. The body weight gain, feed efficiency and feed intake were not affected by ME levels. The amino acid level for the maximum body weight gain and feed efficiency decreased with age. The maximum body weight gain was observed at the period from 42 to 56 days of age.

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A single intramuscular injection of pregnant mare serum gonadotropin (PMSG) was made daily for eight successive days into incubating and brooding Gifuijdori hens. Ten out of eleven incubating hens injected stopped incubating, but none of five brooding hens injected stopped brooding. The ovarian and oviduct weight was increased by the PMSG injection in both incubating and brooding hens, but the degree of the increase was less in the brooding hens. Plasma concentrations of estradiol-17β and progesterone were also increased by the PMSG injection. The increase in the estradiol-17β concentration of the brooding hens delayed from that of the incubating hens, and the increrase in the progesterone concentration was later in the brooding hens than in the incubating hens. The results suggest that the ovary of incubating or brooding hens is capable to respond to gonadotropin and its responsiveness is lower in brooding hens than in incubating hens probably because of the presence of chicks to be brooded.

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Two experimernts were conducted to determine the linoleic acid (LA) requirement of Japanese quail for growth and reproduction. In both experiments, day-old female Japanese quail were fed an LA-free diet until 1 week of age. In experiment 1, the birds divided into 4 groups were given diets containing graded levels of LA (0, 0.5, 1 and 1.5% in the diet) from 1 to 4 weeks of age. In experiemnt 2, the birds divided into 5 groups, and fed diets containing graded levels (0, 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 1.5%) of LA from 1 to 10 weeks of age. Egg weight during final 2 weeks was used to determine the requirement. Each LA requirement was calcuated as 90% asymptotic values obtained from the corresponding non-linear regression lines.
The LA requirement for growing quail was determined from maximum growth and minimum liver size and was estimated as about 1.1% in the diet. The LA requirement for reproduction was estimated as about 0.70% in the diet.

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Dispersed blastodermal cells taken from the eggs of the wild-type plumage quail were microinjected into the blastoderms of unicubated fertilized eggs of sex-linked albino quail. The embryos thus treated were transferred to another quail egg shell beds and cultured for 52-53 hours at 37.5°C while being rocked at an angle of 90 degrees at 30 minutes intervals. Then, the embryos were transferred to the chicken egg shell beds and cultured at 37.5°C with rocking at a 30 degree angle until moved to hatcher just before hatching. Forty-one out of 184 injected embryos hatched and the chimeric plumage was observed in 6 hatchlings. The plumage chimerism was also found in 5 dead embryos. For transgenesis, dispersed blastodermal cells were co-cultured in vitro with a plasmid construct containing β-actin-lacZ hybrid gene (pMiwZ) and a cationic liposome (Lipofectin) for gene transfection, and then injected into the host blastoderm. The embryos were cultured in vitro for 52-53 hours. Ten out of 30 survived embryos exhibited lacZ expression in embryonic tissues as detected by histochemistry. The other 10 exhibited lacZ expression only in exrtaembryonic tissues, and the remaining 10 failed to show any sign of gene transfection. The technique described here should be highly applicable for the production of transgenic avian animals.

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This study was designed to investigate the influence of intensity of lighting on egg production rate and oviposition rhythm in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) under a 14L: 10D light regime.
In experiment 1, hens of three groups were exposed to 77Lux (Group name, 80L), 770Lux (770L) and 1490Lux (1500L) for 12 weeks. In experiment 2, four groups were exposed to light intensities of 59Lux (60L), 181Lux (180L), 442Lux (440L) and 847Lux (850L) for 20 weeks. In experiment 3, two groups of hens were exposed to 55Lux and 75Lux respectively for 4 weeks. The intensities were then lowered to 25Lux for one group (25L) and 6Lux for the other group (6L) for 6 weeks. When the experiments began, birds in experiments 1 and 2 were 13-14 weeks of age and birds in experiment 3 were 33 weeks of age. All hens used in those experiments had been exposed to light intensities of 65Lux in average and a 14L: 10D regime. For all three experiments, oviposition times of each hen were recorded daily.
In experiment 1, egg production rates of 770L and 1500L were 94.5 and 94.8% respectively, and significantly(P<.05) higher than that of 80L (88.7%).The interval hours between consecutive oviposition of 770L and 1500L birds were both 24.1 and significantly shorter(P<.05) than for the 80L birds by 0.5 hour. In experiment 2, egg production rates of all four groups were over 90% with no significant differences among groups. Hens exposed to 440L and 850L laid eggs significantly shorter in the intervals(24.3 and 24.1, respectively) than those of 60L and 180L (24.5 and 24.4, respectively). In experiment 3, egg production rate was over 92% before changing to the lower intensities and the rate were significantly (P<.01)decreased by 5-6 percentage after changing to 25 or 6Lux. The oviposition intervals after changing were 25.3 hours for both groups and significantly (P<.01) longer than those before the change by 0.4-0.8h.
Based on the results of these experiment, the intensity of light appears to be an important photo-factor for egg production and for influencing the oviposition rhythm in Japanese quail.

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The aim of this study was to determine whether estrogen regulates the progesterone receptor mRNA (PRmRNA) expression in the shell gland. The PRmRNA in the shell gland of estradiol-17β(E2)-or its vehicle-treated chicks as well as of laying hens was localized by an in situ hybridization method using digoxigenin-labeled probes. No signal for PRmRNA was observed in the shell gland tunica mucosa consisting of surface epithelium and stroma in vehicle-treated chicks. In the E2-treated chicks, the tubular gland cells contained significant amounts of PRmRNA and the surface epithelium showed very weak signals. No signal for PRmRNA was observed in the tunica mucosa of the shell gland in laying hens. These results suggest that estrogen may be a factor regulating the PRmRNA expression in the shell gland.

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Binding affinity of arginine vasotocin (AVT) receptor of the hen uterus, estimated from the equilibrium dissociation constant (Kd) by SCATCHARD analysis (1949), was found to decrease by the presence of Ca²⁺ or Mg²⁺ at a concentration of 1 or 2mM in buffer solution and to increase by the presence of PO₄^3- or a chelating agent, EDTA. Binding capacity (maximum number of binding sites: NBSmax) was decreased by the presence of PO₄^3- or Ca²⁺ at the concentration of 2mM, but not by the presence of Mg²⁺ at the same concentration.

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[in Japanese]

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