Journal of Agricultural Sciences (Belgrade) (Jan 2020)
Effects of natural antioxidant extract supplementation on the growth performance and meat quality of broiler chickens
Abstract
The study examined the effect of dietary antioxidant supplementation on the performance and meat quality of broiler chickens. Namely, 300 one-day-old Arbor Acres broiler chicks were fed a starter diet from 1 to 4 weeks and a finisher diet for the last 4 weeks. Birds were randomly assigned to treatments based on antioxidant supplementation in drinking water at 0.02% butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), ordinary water (OW), 0.02% sweet orange peel extract (SOPE), 0.02% shaddock peel extract (SHPE) and 0.02% lemon peel extract (LMPE) per litre of water in a completely randomized design experiment. Feed intake and body weight gain were recorded on a weekly basis. Three birds were selected in each treatment and slaughtered for meat quality determination. BHA and LMPE treatments had the best weight gain and feed conversion efficiency at the significance level (p0.05) in appearance and texture perception amongst treatments. Finally, significant differences (p0.05) in the yellowness (b*) amongst the treatments. It can be concluded that broiler birds fed SOPE, SHPE and LMPE treatments performed better and that these treatments enhanced the meat quality of the birds when compared to BHA and OW treatments.
Keywords