RESUMO
An experiment was conducted using one hundred and fourtyfour unsexed laying Japanese quails of about two weeks old to investigate the effect of varying levels of SMKM on the health status of quails. The results for serum biochemical composition showed that serum sodium (Na+), serum potassium (K+), serum bicarbonate (HCO3-) and creatinine were within normal ranges. However, ALT, AST, total bilirubin and serum chloride were not within the normal reference ranges. It is concluded that SMKM could replace maize up to 50% without any nutritional disorder as the parameters that were not within the normal reference ranges did not follow a regular pattern and these observations were applicable to the control experiment as well, revealing that diets would not have accounted for these anomalies.