Abstract

An experiment was conducted on broiler chickens to study the effects of dietary fats rich in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), fish oil (n-3 rich oil), soybean oil (n-6 rich oil), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) alone or in dual mixtures, as well as palm oil as a more saturated fat on tissue fat deposition and serum lipid concentrations of broiler chickens. The fat included in the experiment's diets is a dose of 7% for single fats and 3.5 + 3.5% for the dual mixtures. The conjugate linoleic acid (CLA) supplement used in this study was LUTA-CLA 60, containing 60% CLA, so that dietary inclusion of 7 and 3.5% LUTA-CLA 60 were supplied with 4.2 and 2.1% CLA, respectively. The chickens fed diets containing palm oil, soybean oil or fish oil as the only dietary fat deposited more fat in breast tissue compared with other groups (P < 0.05). The highest fat in thigh tissue was observed in birds fed 7% fish oil (P < 0.05). The CLA containing diets resulted in fatter liver tissue (P < 0.05). The diets containing 7% fish oil effectively decreased the lipid content of chicken's liver (P < 0.05). The fish oil and soybean oil as n-3 and n-6 rich sources, respectively demonstrated a comparable reduction in the serum cholesterol and low density lipoprotein (LDL) concentrations (P < 0.05), while the 7% CLA diet increased serum high density lipoprotein (HDL) level (P < 0.05). The results of this study showed that dietary fish oil, and CLA effectively increased fat content of meat and liver tissues, respectively; and the dietary soybean oil and fish oil were more effective on reducing serum undesired lipoproteins, as compared with CLA.

Key words: CLA, PUFA, body fat deposition, serum lipids and broiler chickens.

Abbreviation

Abbreviations: CLA, Conjugated linoleic acid; PUFAs, polyunsaturated fatty acids; LDL, low density lipoprotein; HDL, high density lipoprotein.