Carcass characteristics and sensory attributes of broiler chicken supplemented with dietary combinations of linseed oil and natural antioxidant

Abstract

A Study was conducted to evaluate the effect of feeding linseed oil (LO) in combination with either curry leaf powder, ginger powder or turmeric powder on performance, carcass quality and sensory characteristics in broiler chicken until six weeks of age. Day old Vencobb broiler chicks (n=150) were randomly allotted to following five dietary treatments (30/group): 2% vegetable oil/control (C), 2% linseed oil (LO), 2% LO+ 0.5% curry leaf powder (L+C), 2% LO + 0.5% ginger powder (L+G) and 2% LO + 0.5% turmeric powder (L+T). At the end of 6th weeks, it was observed that in terms of total weight gain, control (C) and natural antioxidant supplemented groups performed significantly (P<0.05) better than only linseed oil diet group. Feeding linseed oil in combination with curry leaf, ginger and turmeric powder for six weeks did not show significant variation in terms of carcass characteristics like dressed weight, hot carcass and organ weight. Further, the omega-3 fatty acid (n-3 FA) content in the meat was enriched by 1.3 to 2.4 fold in all the 2% linseed oil fed groups. The enhancement of n-3 FA content in meat was due to increase in a-linolenic acid content in the diet. However, the enhancement of n-3 FA did not cause any significant adverse effect on sensory quality of chicken meat.