Nutritional parameters of eggs from laying hens fed with flaxseed meal or mixture with rapeseed meal or rice bran

Abstract

The effect of flaxseed meal or mixture with rapeseed meal or rice bran on the performance and nutritional quality of the eggs was investigated in a 6-week feeding trial on 120, Tetra SL layers (38 weeks). The hens, 4 groups (30 hens/group; 2 birds/cage) were feed with a basal diet (C); flaxseed meal (5%; E1); flaxseed meal-rapeseed meal (2.5%; 10%; E2) and flaxseed meal-rice bran (2.5%; 10%; E3). At the end of the trial, 18 eggs/group were collected to determine the egg quality and were assayed for the nutritional parameters. The results showed that the polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content was higher in groups E2 (28.65%) and E3 (29.62%). The index of atherogenicity (AI) decreased significantly (P<0.05) in group E2 (0.53) compared with C group (0.57), while the index of hypercholesterolemic fatty acid registered a higher value (2.69) vs. control group (2.45). In conclusion, use of the dietary flaxseed meal or mixture with rapeseed meal or rice bran had beneficial effects on egg nutritional quality, regarding the decrease in significant SFA content as well as the ΣSFA/ΣUFA ratio and the PUFA ω6:ω3 ratio. Also, the experimental diets significantly increased the yolk PUFA contents, proving a beneficial effect on human health.

Keywords

• cholesterol
• eggs
• fatty acids
• layers
• health lipid indexes of eggs’ yolks