Meat Quality Characteristics of Broilers as Influenced by Dietary Inclusion of FishOil with Different Vegetable Oils

摘要

An experiment was conducted for a period of six weeks in two hundred, sex separated, day-old, commercial (Vencobb) broiler chicks under deep litter system to study the meat quality characteristics of dietary inclusion of fish oil in combination with different commonly available oils, viz., coconut oil, groundnut oil and rice bran oil at 1, 2 and 3 per cent level in pre-starter, starter and finisher diets, respectively. All the chicks were randomly allotted into five treatment groups with five replicates of eight chicks each which consisted of T_1 (Basal diet with Fish oil), T_2 (Basal diet with Fish oil + Coconut oil), T_3 (Basal diet with Fish oil + Groundnut oil), T_4 (Basal diet with Fish oil + Rice bran oil) and T_6 (Basal diet with Coconut oil+ Groundnut oil + Rice bran oil). At the end of the experiment (42nd day), five males and females each, totally ten birds per treatment group were randomly selected and slaughtered for studying meat quality characteristics. Statistical analysis of data on carcass characteristics showed significant (P<0.05) difference for gizzard and abdominal fat weight among the treatment groups. Hence, it is concluded that groundnut oil combined with fish oil (T_3) in the basal diet lowered the breast and thigh musclecholesterol levels in broilers.