Effect of dietary ω6/ω3 on growth performance, carcass traits, meat quality and fatty acid profiles of Beijing-you chicken

P>The effects of varying the omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratio (omega 6/omega 3) of diets on growth performance, carcass traits, meat quality and fatty acid composition of breast muscle were investigated in Beijing-you chickens grown to 92 days. A total of 360 one-day-old female BJY chickens were fed diets containing 0%, 0.12%, 0.42%, 1.00% or 1.97% linseed oil replacing equal weights of maize oil to make dietary omega 6/omega 3 to be approximately 30:1, 20:1, 10:1, 5:1 and 2.5:1. Subcutaneous fat thickness and intramuscular fat content increased significantly in birds fed up to 10:1 omega 6/omega 3. a* values (redness of meat, dimension of the CIELAB-system) progressively increased as the diets contained increasing omega 3 content, up to the 10:1 omega 6/omega 3.The changes in b* (yellowness of meat, dimensions of the CIELAB-system) were also significant but the pattern was almost the reverse of changes in a*. Shear force increased significantly as dietary omega 6/omega 3 was reduced from 30:1 to 5:1. Decreasing the dietary omega 6/omega 3 clearly decreased the content in breast muscle of C20:1 and C22:1, but increased that of C24:1. C20:4, C20:5 and C22:5, increased significantly by decreasing the dietary omega 6/omega 3, and the birds fed the 10:1 diet had higher contents of C22:6 than other treatments. This study has clearly demonstrated that decreasing the dietary omega 6/omega 3, increases the deposition of desirable omega 3 and omega 6 long chain PUFA in the edible tissue, thereby achieving nutritionally enriched meat.