THE PROFILE OF FATTY ACIDS AND THE EGGS QUALITY FROM HENS FED TO THE DIET WITH FLAX SEEDS, RAPESEED MEAL AND VITAMIN E SUPPLEMENTS

Abstract

This experiment investigates the effect of flaxseed meal, rapeseed meal and vitamin E supplementation, when used together, on the production parameters of fatty acid composition and eggs quality characteristics in Tetra SL laying hens (38 to 46 weeks of age). For this, 120 hens were allocated one of three treatments, with 40 hens in each group. The hens were fed either a control diet (C), a control diet including 2.5 % flaxseed meal and 2.5% rapeseed meal (E1) or 2.5% flaxseed meal and 2.5% rapeseed meal with 73 mg/ kg feed of vitamin E as an antioxidant supplement (E2) for 8 weeks. Hens consuming the E1 diet had greater egg production and egg mass than those from group C. The feed conversion ratio in both the E1 and E2 groups was lower (P 0.05) in E1 and E2. When comparing the n-6/n-3 ratio of fatty acids from experimental treatments (6.44 and 6.74) with C treatment (18.19), a significant difference was observed (almost 65% lower).

Keywords

• egg fatty acids
• egg quality
• flaxseed
• laying hens
• rapeseed