Authors : S.A. Mirghelenj , A. Golian and V. Taghizadeh
Abstract: An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of dietary added fish oil on performance, Fatty Acid (FA) composition and sensory traits of broiler chicken meat. Four hundred and fifty, 28 days old Ross, 308 male broiler chickens were divided into 30 groups of similar body weight of 15 birds each. Six grower isocaloric/isonitrogenous diets contained 0-5% fish oil were provided and each was fed to 5 groups of birds from 28-42 days of age. Production performance was measured weekly, whereas Fatty Acid (FA) profile of thigh and breast meat were determined in 3 chicken from each replicate at the end of experiment. There was not any significant effect (p>0.05) of dietary treatments on birds Feed Intake (FI), Body Weight Gain (BWG), Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) and livability. The amount of long chain n-3 FAs (Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA) and Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA)) in thigh and breast were increased significantly as the level of added fish oil increased in the diet (p<0.05), whereas linoleic acid (n-6) and alpha linolenic acid (n-3) content of this 2 cuts were not affected by the level of dietary fish oil (p>0.05). The breast and thigh meat from birds fed diets with 0, 1 and 2% fish oil were in the acceptable range (scores <2) to the panelists. The DHA content of breast and thigh of birds fed diet with 0-2% fish oil, increased from 0.046 and 0.086 (mg g-1) to 0.166 and 0.27 (mg g-1), respectively. A significant linear relationship was found between the levels of fish oil and EPA in breast fillet and thigh (R2 = 0.59 and R2 = 0.71, respectively) and also for DHA (R2 = 0.71 and R2 = 0.72, respectively).
S.A. Mirghelenj , A. Golian and V. Taghizadeh , 2009. Enrichment of Chicken Meat with Long Chain Omega-3 Fatty Acids through Dietary Fish Oil. Research Journal of Biological Sciences, 4: 604-608.