Effects of natural antioxidant extract supplementation on the growth performance and meat quality of broiler chickens

摘要

The study examined the effect of dietary antioxidantsupplementation on the performance and meat quality of broiler chickens. Namely,300 one-day-old Arbor Acres broiler chicks were fed a starter diet from 1 to 4weeks and a finisher diet for the last 4 weeks. Birds were randomly assigned totreatments based on antioxidant supplementation in drinking water at 0.02%butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), ordinary water (OW), 0.02% sweet orange peelextract (SOPE), 0.02% shaddock peel extract (SHPE) and 0.02% lemon peelextract (LMPE) per litre of water in a completely randomized design experiment.Feed intake and body weight gain were recorded on a weekly basis. Three birdswere selected in each treatment and slaughtered for meat quality determination.BHA and LMPE treatments had the best weight gain and feed conversionefficiency at the significance level (p0.05). There were significant differences(p0.05) in the shear force (force peak and yield) in the dietary antioxidants fed tothe birds. Sensory parameters (taste, aroma and overall acceptability) showsignificant differences (p0.05) amongst the treatments. However, there were nosignificant differences (p0.05) in appearance and texture perception amongsttreatments. Finally, significant differences (p0.05) in the lightness (L*) andredness (a*) of the meat samples were observed amongst the treatments. Therewere no significant differences (p0.05) in the yellowness (b*) amongst thetreatments. It can be concluded that broiler birds fed SOPE, SHPE and LMPEtreatments performed better and that these treatments enhanced the meat quality ofthe birds when compared to BHA and OW treatments.