Quality assessment of chicken fillets produced from broiler chickens fed natural pigment sources

Abstract

The quality of chicken fillets obtained from broiler chickens fed diets containing natural pigment sources was investigated. One hundred and sixty one-day-old Abor acre broiler chicks were randomly allotted to 5 dietary treatments with 4 replicates and 8 birds per replicate in a completely randomised design. TA- Control, TB-Baobab leaves, TC-Moringa leaves, TD-Orange peels, TE-Roselle calyx. (all at 4% inclusion rates). Two birds per replicate were slaughtered at 8 weeks and breast muscle was harvested to develop chicken fillets which were stored and analysed on day 0, 3 and 6. Lipid oxidation rate, pH and Aerobic Plate Count (APC) were determined on stored fillets. The result revealed that pH values of fillets increased (p<0.05) over the storage days with treatments C and E having the highest values (6.22) at day 6. Lipid oxidation rate was also significant (p<0.05) for treatment effect only, with treatment C having the lowest values (2.88). Microbial contents of fillets in Treatment C reduced significantly at day 6 compared to fillets produced and stored from other treatments. However, APC for all treatments (p<0.05) varied slightly across the treatments and over the storage days. It can therefore be concluded that Moringa supplemented diet had better effects on maintaining the oxidative and microbial quality of the chicken fillets during the storage period.