Some body variables and their relationships in blue-breasted quail Synoicus chinensis
Arzu Üçtepe
Abstract: Blue-breasted quail (Synoicus chinensis, formerly Coturnix chinensis or Excalfactoria chinensis), has recently been defined as a good animal model for research in developmental biology, genetics, reproduction, behavior, and immunology due to its advantages, such as ease of handling, robustness, high egg-laying performance, observation of parthenogenesis, and short generation. The aim of this study was to determine body variables such as live weight, length of total body, length of exposed culmen, length of culmen without cere, windth of bill from the front of the cere, width of bill at gape, length of head, width of head, heigth of eye, length of closed wing, length of tarsus, length of middle toe, length of hallux and investigate the relationships between body variables and identify the most influential variable(s) causing the observed in blue-breasted quail. A total of 96 blue-breasted quails at 65-67 days of age were used. Live weight (P=0.000), length of total body (P=0.004), heigth of eye (P=0.000) and length of closed wing (P=0.004) were higher in females, while length of exposed culmen (P=0.008) was higher in males. The remaining other body variables were not fount to be statistically different between sexes (P>0.05). The correlation coefficients between some body variables in the two sexes were significant. A number of negative correlations were found to be significant for females (P<0.05), while none of them were found to be significant for males. (P>0.05). First two principal components accounted for 94.6% and 78.3% of the total variance in females and males, respectively, and the most effective variable in both genders was live weight. This study could be a source that will pave the way for future studies on the blue-breasted quail, which has recently been the subject of several studies because of its many variables, and which has not yet been selectively bred.
Keywords: body variable; Chinese painted quail; correlation; principal component
Citation: Üçtepe. A. (2025). Some body variables and their relationships in blue-breasted quail Synoicus chinensis. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 31(3), 576–584.
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| Date published: 2025-06-24
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