Effects of dietary fish oil and flax seed on cholesterol and fatty acid composition of egg yolk and blood parameters of laying hens

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the effects of the supplementation of different levels of fish oil (FO) and flax seed (FS) in the diets of layers on the content of egg yolk fatty acid, cholesterol, blood parameters, egg production and egg quality criteria. In the experiment, a total of 120 Isa-White laying hens of 34 weeks of age were used. Hens were divided randomly into five groups and fed different diets containing no FO and FS; 1.5% FO; 4.32% FS; 1.5% FO+4.32% FS and 8.64% FS for eight weeks. A significant decrease in yolk cholesterol content (mg/g yolk) was found in the eggs from hens fed the diets containing 1.5 % FO and 8.64% FS as compared with the control. Adding FO and FS to diets significantly increased the total omega-3 fatty acids in eggs at 28 (phase 1) and 56 (phase 2) days of the trial. By contrast, the addition of both FO and FS to diets had no effect on total omega-6 fatty acids in eggs in phase 1. But dietary 1.5% FO, 4.32% FS and 1.5% FO+4.32% FS supplementation decreased significantly the total omega-6 fatty acids compared to the controls in phase 2. The linolenic acid content of eggs was the highest in eggs from hens fed the diet with added FS, while docosahexaenoic acid content was the highest in eggs from hens fed diets with added FO. Dietary supplementation of FO and FS did not significantly affect the concentrations of serum trigliceride and high density lipoprotein. The serum cholesterol level of hens fed diets containing 1.5% FO+4.32% FS and 8.64% FS was lower than the control group. The addition of FO and FS to diets did not cause any negative effect on some egg quality criteria such as egg weight, yolk weight, yolk ratio, albumen weight, albumen ratio, shell weight, shell ratio, shell strength and shell thickness. The egg production of hens fed a diet containing 4.32% FS was significantly higher than the controls. Feed intake and feed conversion were not affected by all treatments. Keywords: Omega-3 fatty acids, Cholesterol eggs, Flax seed, Fish oil South African Journal of Animal Science Vol.33(4) 2003: 266-273