Abstract
AIM: An in vivo experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of supplementation of cinnamon oil (CO) and sodium butyrate on carcass characteristics and meat quality of broiler chicken compared with the antibiotic supplementation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A biological experiment was carried out with 216-day-old Vencobb-400 broiler chicks randomly distributed to six experimental treatments with six replicates, each replicate containing six chicks with equal numbers of male and female chicks. The experimental diets were prepared with isocaloric and isonitrogenous basis. The experimental groups, namely control (T(1)), control with antibiotic (T(2)), control with CO at 250 mg/kg and coated sodium butyrate (CSB) either at 0.09 (T(3)) or 0.18% (T(4)), and control with CO at 500 mg/kg and CSB either at 0.09 (T(5)) or 0.18% (T(6)). The trial was carried out in deep litter pen for 35 days. The carcass characteristics such as ready to cooked yield, eviscerated weight, heart, liver, gizzard, giblet, and abdominal fat percent in slaughtered birds and meat quality properties such as pH, water-holding capacity (WHC), tyrosine, shear force, cooking loss, thiobarbituric acid, sensory characteristics, and muscle cholesterol in breast muscle samples were evaluated. RESULTS: The carcass characteristics such as ready-to-cook yield, eviscerated weight, and weight of heart, liver, gizzard, giblet, and abdominal fat as a percent of live body weight were not influenced by supplementation of CO and CSB at the levels attempted or by antibiotic supplementation in broilers. The pH, cooking loss, shear force and WHC of meat, appearance, flavor, texture, mouth coating, juiciness and overall acceptability of meat were not influenced by the supplementation of different levels of CO and CSB or by antibiotic supplementation but decreased meat cholesterol level in broilers. CONCLUSION: The results indicated that the supplementation of CO and CSB in broiler diet did not alter the carcass characteristics and meat quality parameters except meat cholesterol content in broilers.