Meat quality of broiler chickens when adding plant organic substances into the diet

The restriction of the use of antibiotics in poultry farming in many countries has fueled interest in alternative products such as herbal preparations (a group of natural products), which have been the subject of numerous studies in recent years. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of biologically active plant organic substances on the chemical, fatty and amino acid composition of muscles and liver of broiler chickens. The studies were performed on 125 7-day-old broiler chickens (Arbor Acres cross), divided into 5 groups (n = 25). The duration of the experiment was 42 days. The difference was that the control group received the basal diet; experimental group I – the basal diet + gamma lactone at a dose of 0.1 ml/kg of feed/day; experimental group II – the basal diet + gamma lactone at a dose of 0.1 ml/kg + cinnamaldehyde a dose of 55 mg/kg of feed/day; experimental group III – the main diet + gamma lactone at a dose of 0.1 ml/kg + 7-hydroxycoumarin at at a dose of 2 mg/kg of feed/day; experimental group IV – the main diet + gamma lactone at a dose of 0.1 ml/kg + cinnamic aldehyde at a dose of 55 mg/kg + 7-hydroxycoumarin at a dose of 2 mg/kg of feed/day. The study found that the young birds from the experimental groups exceeded their peers from the control group in fat accumulation in the pectoral muscles: I group by 0.43 %, II – by 0.88 % (P≤0.05), III – by 0.82 % (P≤0.05) and IV group – by 0.4 %. Birds from groups II and IV in terms of protein content in the femoral muscle exceeded their counterparts from the control group by 0.87 and 0.82 %, respectively. In the breast and thigh muscles of broilers of group III, fatty acids accumulated more compared to the control: palmitoleic by 0.5 and 0.3 %, stearic by 0.2 % (only in the thigh muscles), oleic by 1.1 % (P≤0.05) (only in the breast muscles), linoleic by 1.5 (P≤0.05) and 3.1 % (P≤0.01). When feeding pure gamma lactone with the diet, the highest deposition of arginine by 0.77 %, lysine by 2.64 % (P≤0.05), leucine + isoleucine by 2.1 % (P≤0.05), valine by 0.83 %, serine by 1.57 % (P≤0.05), alanine by 1.22 % (P≤0.05) in the femoral muscles was observed in relation to the control group.

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