Evaluation of pearl millet and flaxseed effects on egg production and n-3 fatty acid content.

摘要

A 6 wk trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of pearl millet (PM) as a replacement for maize (corn), in combination with flaxseed (FS), on productivity, egg traits and egg n-3 fatty acid (FA) content in White Leghorn chickens. 6 diet treatments were used: a control (CTL, maize-soy meal based) diet; and diets containing 0, 2, 4, 8 or 12% FS, in which all maize was replaced by PM (PM-0, PM-2, PM-4, PM-8 and PM-12, respectively). All diets were isocaloric and isonitrogenous and met NRC (1994) requirements. 8 cage replicates per treatment were used (3 chickens/cage). At the end of each week, 3 eggs were randomly collected from each cage to measure egg traits, and yolks were separated, pooled and lyophilized for FA determination. Body wt. and feed consumption were recorded weekly. Egg production (number of eggs and egg mass produced) was recorded daily. At the end of the experiment, all chickens were killed to determine liver haemorrhage score. Egg traits and flock performance parameters did not differ among treatments except at wk 4, when birds on the PM-12 diet produced smaller eggs than chickens on the PM-0 and PM-2 diets. Yolk pigmentation scores were low for the PM-0 and PM-2 diets (1.60 +or- 0.24 and 1.80 +or- 0.20, respectively); they increased with higher inclusions of FS (2.75 +or- 0.47 for PM-12 diet), but did not reach control levels (6.00 +or- 0.01). Liver haemorrhage scores were not affected by dietary treatment. Chickens given the PM-8 and PM-12 diets produced eggs with n-3 FA contents higher than those required to be considered as n-3 FA enriched eggs, and had a lower n-6-3 FA acid ratio than eggs of chickens consuming CTL or the PM based diets with lower FS supplementation. Results suggest that PM can be used as a substitute for maize in the diets of laying chickens and may reduce the amount of FS needed to obtain n-3 FA enriched eggs.