Fatty acid, protein and energy gain of broilers fed different dietary vegetable oils

The objective of this study was to assess energy, nitrogen, fat and fatty acid deposition in broilers fed diets containing different vegetable oil sources. Forty female broiler chickens were fed five diets, with different fats [coconut, palm, olive, soybean (SO) and linseed oil (LO)] at 10% from 30 to 50 days of age. The animals consuming the LO diet presented the lowest body fat content. There were no differences among treatments regarding nitrogen balance. The greater percentage of apparent metabolizable energy was obtained with the LO diet. All animals deposited more saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids than digested, however the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids deposited in the SO and LO treatments was lower than the amount digested. These results indicate that chickens that consumed the highly polyunsaturated diets deposited less fat due to a lower gain of polyunsaturated fatty acids.