The lavender plumage colour in Japanese quail is associated with a complex mutation in the region of MLPH that is related to differences in growth, feed consumption and body temperature

Table 3 Effects of family, sex, and plumage colour on gross body composition (mean ± SD) of 6-month old lavender (n = 51) and wild-type (n = 41) Japanese quail from 18 full-sib families

Trait	Plumage colour (genotype)		Percentage of the total variance explained by the model¹(R²)		Significance of the effect of plumage colour in the Full model
	Lavender (lav/lav)	Wild-type (lav/+)	Full model	Reduced model
6-month body weight (g)	187.3 ± 21.1	194.3 ± 22.1	67	64	*
6-month body temperature² (°C)	40.89 ± 0.35	41.03 ± 0.26	52	45	***
Carcass weight (g)	179.6 ± 19.8	187.3 ± 21.0	65	61	*
Abdominal adipose tissue³ (g)	4.20 ± 2.14	4.06 ± 1.99	72	71	NS
Pectoralis muscles^3,4 (g)	12.7 ± 1.4	14.0 ± 1.7	83	76	***
Liver weight³ (g)	4.29 ± 2.03	4.10 ± 1.62	91	89	***

¹ The Full model includes the effects of family, sex and plumage colour, and the Reduced model does not include plumage colour.
² Live body weight was used as a covariable for the analysis of body temperature of 6-month fed quail.
³ Carcass weight was used as a covariable for the analyses of abdominal adipose tissue, breast muscle weight, liver weight, and heart weight.
⁴ Total weight of the right pectoralis major and pectoralis minor muscles.
*: p ≤ 0.05; ***: p ≤ 0.001; NS: not significant.

ISSN: 1471-2164