Thymol as natural antioxidant additive for poultry feed: oxidative stability improvement

DAMBOLENA, J. S.; MARIN R. H.; LUNA, A.; ZYGADLO, J. A.; LEMA ALBA, R.; LABAQUE, M. C.

POULTRY SCIENCE

POULTRY SCIENCE ASSOC INC

Año: 2017 vol. 96 p. 3214 - 3220

0032-5791

Antioxidant are regularly included in poultry feed as protectionfrom deterioration during storage. Recently the interest for the use of naturalphytochemicals in animal diets has been increased. Thymol (THY) has been provento be an effective antioxidant for extending broiler meat quality duringstorage with similar action to the widely used butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). Thisstudy evaluates whether THY can also have a protective effect on the feed mash byassessing its antioxidant potential and related changes in fatty acid (FA)balance. Feed mash was assigned to 1 of 4 treatments, control (CON, noadditive), vehicle (VEH, ethanol 96%), BHT (400 mg BHT /kg feed) and THY (400mg THY /kg feed). Three replicates of each treatment were taken after 0, 30 and60 days of storage at room temperature (23 ± 3°C) and relative humidity (40 ±5%). Peroxide value (PV), titratable acidity (TA) and FA relative composition weredetermined. As expected, there were no treatment effects on those variables at0 days of storage. However, higher PV values were detected in the CON and VEHgroups after 30 and 60 days of storage in comparison to the THY and BHT treatedsamples (CON = VEH > THY = BHT). While a slight increase was also observedin TA through storage time, no particular treatment effects were detected.Relative FA composition changed with storage time only in the CON and VEH groupwhich had a decrease in polyunsaturated fatty acids and an increase in saturatedFA. No changes were detected in the Thy and BHT treated feeds. The results suggesta similar THY and BHT protective effect on feed mash lipid oxidation. Thus, THYcould be considered as a useful natural alternative to help sustain quality ofpoultry feed.