Influence of Dietary Inclusion of Oil and Quercetin Supplementation on Carcass Characters and Meat Quality Attributes of Broiler Chickens

Abstract

Dietary inclusion of vegetable oil, with or without quercetin was supplied to broilers for 35 days, in order to determine its influence on carcass characters and meat quality attributes. Vencobb strain of broiler chickens (n=192) were assigned in to four dietary treatment groups on 7^th day of age. All the birds were supplied with corn soya-based diet as a basal feed. Group T1 served as control without any supplementation. T2 and T3 supplied with quercetin at 1 g kg^-1 and 33 g kg^-1 vegetable oil to raise 10% ME of the feed, respectively, whereas, both in combination at same dose rate were supplied in T4. At the end (42 days age) 8 birds from each respective group (2 birds per replicates) were sacrificed for carcass characters and meat quality assessment. Results revealed that dressing percentage relative to body weight was significantly differ among the dietary treatment groups, whereas % relative weight of all major organs was found comparable. Moisture % was significantly low whereas, pH and % cooking loss were comparatively high (P<0.05) in T3. CP, EE and TA content and physico-chemical composition of meat were not affected by treatments. The noteworthy (P<0.05) influence had been observed on sensory attributes of broiler meat with dietary treatments and overall palatability was improved in T1 and T2. Overall findings showed that 10% raised in ME by inclusion of oil was adversely influences the meat quality and quercetin supplementation exhibited positive impact on carcass characters and meat quality attributes of chickens.