Supplementation of commercial layer diets with different refined fish oils. Effects on layer performance and sensory egg quality

Abstract

The performance of 216 Leghorn layers and the sensory evaluation of their eggs were studied as a result of using different marine lipid sources (fish meal, oleine, crude fish oil and a refined fish oil, Alkitol-R-15®), in their diets. The birds were distributed randomly in 4 treatments: Tl= control, soy bean meal based diet; T2 = 4% fish meal plus 3% oleine; T3 = 4% fish meal plus 6% crude fish oil and T4 = 4% fish meal plus 6% of refined fish oil concentrate ALKITOL-R-15®. Food and water were supplied ad libitum. The evaluated variables controlled were: laying percentage (LP), food consumption (FC), live weight (LW), egg weight (EW), egg mass (EM), feed conversion efficiency (FCE), mortality (M), gross margin, feeding cost per egg produced , egg flavour and aromatic quality, egg acceptability and preference. Diets with marine oils had a higher (P < 0.05) EPA + DHA concentration than the Tl control. Main results showed that LP, LW, EW, EM, FCE and FC were similar between treatments (P > 0.05) that included marine oils irrespective of the level in which they were included. Also, all these treatments had higher performances (P < 0.05) than the control MS. The sensory evaluation indexes did not show any statistical differences (P > 0.05) between the treatments tested. The inclusion of lipids from marine resources did not affect the layer performance nor the sensory evaluation of eggs and it should produce economic benefits to the producer.