Table 2.
Effect of vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids on fiber width of pectoralis major muscle of broilers.
| Item | Treatments1 |
SEM | P-value | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Control | Starter VE | Starter n-3 | Starter VE and n-3 | Grower VE | Grower n-3 | Grower VE and n-3 | |||
| Average fiber width, μm | 45.87 | 47.54 | 46.55 | 47.90 | 45.36 | 46.75 | 46.75 | 0.42 | 0.71 |
| Fiber width <20 μm, % | 6.25 | 4.47 | 6.17 | 5.64 | 5.97 | 6.33 | 6.75 | 0.33 | 0.68 |
| 20 μm ≤ Fiber width <40 μm, % | 30.41 | 28.41 | 29.62 | 29.34 | 32.04 | 31.74 | 29.43 | 0.70 | 0.83 |
| 40 μm ≤ Fiber width <70 μm, % | 55.38a,b | 58.85a | 55.10a,b | 52.46a,b | 56.02a,b | 51.74 b | 54.70a,b | 0.79 | 0.38 |
| Fiber width ≥70 μm, % | 7.96a,b | 8.27a,b | 9.11a,b | 12.56a | 5.97 b | 10.19a,b | 9.12a,b | 0.66 | 0.34 |
a-bValues within a row without a common letter are significantly different (P ≤ 0.05).
1
Broilers in the control group were fed diets with standard level of vitamin E (VE; 10 IU/kg) and omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids (n-6/n-3 ratio of 30.2:1) during the entire study (0–58 d). Supplementation of additional VE (200 IU/kg), n-3 fatty acids (n-6/n-3 ratio of 3.2:1), or combination of both was performed during the starter phase (0–10 d) or grower phase (11–24 d).