The objective of this study was to investigate the pre-hatch growth and development of the selected internal organs (brain, eye, heart, kidneys, tongue, oesophagus, proventriculus, gizzard, intestines, liver, trachea and lungs) of quail.  Sixty eggs divided into ten groups (n=6) were weighed, labelled and incubated. One group of eggs was removed from the incubator on a daily basis for collection of samples. The weight of embryos and absolute weight of the organs along with the length of each selected organ of all embryos were recorded from day eight till hatch (day 17). The Janoscheck growth curve function was fit to evaluate group means and characteristic parameters of the growth curve. The growth curves based on measured and predicted means for each organ revealed sigmoid and exponential growth curves for most of the organs. During the course of incubation, the growth patterns grouped organs into two groups depending on the rate of growth. Tongue, esophagus, trachea, heart and eye showed early rapid growth while lungs, kidneys, intestine and other digestive organs exhibited late rapid growth. The results also revealed that the slop of the growth curve of each organ kept on changing, positively and negatively, with the embryo weight and duration of incubation steadily.

To Cite This Article: Sarfraz A, Qureshi AS, Kausar R, Usman M, Hussain M and Umar Z, 2019. Pre-hatch growth and development of selected internal organs of Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica). Pak Vet J, 39(3): 335-340. http://dx.doi.org/10.29261/pakvetj/2019.071