Published in Scientific Papers. Series D. Animal Science, Vol. LXV, Issue 1
Written by Tatiana Dumitra PANAITE, Gabriela Maria CORNESCU, Raluca Paula TURCU, Petru Alexandru VLAICU, Gabriel Claudiu RADULESCU
The effect of dietary flaxseed meal, rapeseed meal and fodder peas on layers’ performances and egg quality was investigated in a 6-wk feeding trial on 168 Tetra SL layers (65 weeks) assigned to 4 groups (C, E1, E2, E3). The commercial (C) diet had 2750 kcal ME and 16.4% CP. Compare to diet C, the experimental groups were fed with flaxseed meal (3%, E1), flaxseed meal-fodder peas (3%; 10%; E2), flaxseed meal-rapeseed meal (3%; 10%; E3) which increased the dietary level of the total polyunsaturated fatty acids PUFA n-3 (% of total fat) to 5.72(E1), 6.87 (E2) and 5.65 (E3) compared to group C (1.19), in diet. At the end of the trial, 18 eggs/group were collected to determine the eggs nutritional and quality parameters. The results showed that egg intensity was lower (P≤0.05) in all experimental groups. Egg weight (g) in E1 (65.39) was higher (P≤0.05) compared to all other groups. Also, yolk colour intensity increased significantly (P≤0.05) in all experimental groups compared to C group. Similarly, the results showed that PUFA n-3 acid content was higher in all experimental groups (3.14%; 3.38% and 3.53%) compared to C group (1.13%). In conclusion, using dietary raw materials rich in PUFA n-3 had a positive influence on laying hens’ egg quality and improved the nutritional quality indices of the lipids in egg yolks.
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