The effect of supplemental manganese in broiler diets on abdominal fat deposition and meat quality

• DOI: 10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2005.12.005
• Publication Date: 2006-01-19T19:06:46Z
• Authors: L. Lu; C. Ji; X.G. Luo; B. Liu; S.X. Yu
• Keywords: Malondialdehyde; Abdominal fat; Intramuscular fat; Completely randomized design

Abstract An experiment was conducted using a total of 288 day-old Arbor Acres male broilers to study the effect of supplemental manganese (Mn) levels on carcass traits, meat quality and relative enzyme activities in the abdominal fat and meat. Birds were randomly allotted by body weight to one of six treatments (eight replicate cages of six chicks per cage) in a completely randomized design. Broilers were fed on Mn-unsupplemented maize–soybean meal basal diets containing 9.5 g Ca/kg and 22.74 mg Mn/kg for the first phase of 21days and adjusted to 8.8 g Ca/kg and 18.86 mg Mn/kg for a second phase of 21days (42days total), or fed basal diets supplemented with 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500 mg/kg Mn as Mn sulphate (MnSO4·H2O) for the duration of the 42 days. The supplemental Mn level had no effect (P>0.05) on the dressing percentage, the percentage of breast or leg muscles, water-holding capacity, L* value, a* value, shear force, and intramuscular fat in breast and leg muscles. Additionally, the supplemental Mn level did not influence (P>0.05) pH values in leg muscles, b* value, malondialdehyde (MDA) content and Mn-containing superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) activity in breast muscle, or malate dehydrogenase (MDH) activity and hormone sensitive lipase (HSL) activity in abdominal fat. However, Mn did influence the content of abdominal fat (P