Introduction: This experiment carried out to investigate the effect of gamma ray irradiated
cottonseed meal on production performance and external and internal quality traits of Japanese
quail eggs.
Materials & Methods: A total of 144 pieces of Japanese quail distributed to four experimental
treatments with six replications in a completely randomized design. Experimental diets
included diets without gamma-irradiated cottonseed meal (control treatment) and diets
containing levels of 7.5, 15 and 22.5 percent of gamma-irradiated cottonseed meal. During the
experiment, feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio recorded weekly, and at the end of
the experiment, two eggs were selected from each replicate and the traits randomly and the
external and internal quality of the eggs were examined.
Results: The results showed that 40 kGy dose of gamma rays could reduce the total and free
gossypol of raw cottonseed meal (37.47 mg/kg and 0.14 mg/kg compared to 679.31 mg/kg and
42.94 mg/kg). Addition of different levels of gamma-irradiated cottonseed meal did not have
any significant effect on production performance and the external and internal quality traits of
quail eggs in different treatments at 70 days.
Conclusion: Generally, the results of this study showed that irradiation of 40 kGy dose of
gamma rays to cottonseed meal could reduce the concentration of total and free gossypol and
its consumption in the diet did not have a negative effect on quail performance and quail egg
characteristics.