Uso de emulsificante e sua associação com polifenóis na ração de codornas de corte contendo óleo de fritura

Abstract

In order to evaluate the effects of emulsifier inclusion and its association with polyphenols (thymol and carvacrol) in the diet of meat quails containing frying oil, 350 meat quails at 7 days of age were used, distributed in a completely randomized design in a factorial scheme (2 x 3) + 1, totaling 7 treatments with 5 replicates of 10 birds. The treatments consisted of diets obtained from the studied factors: a control diet formulated with soybean oil and the other diets formulated with frying oil and two energy levels (2,950 and 2,900 kcal/kg of feed) and three additive utilization strategies (no additives, with emulsifier inclusion, and with emulsifier and polyphenol inclusion). The performance, carcass characteristics of the birds, and economic viability were evaluated, and the data were subjected to analysis of variance, according to the adopted factorial model, with the control treatment being compared with the other treatments using Dunnett’s test. To evaluate the effect of the factors and their interactions, the control treatment was removed from the model, and the means were compared using Tukey’s test. The performance results showed that, in relation to the control treatment, only quails fed diets with reduced metabolizable energy had higher feed intake and worse feed conversion, with no effect on weight gain and final body weight. There was no significant interaction between metabolizable energy levels and additive usage strategies for any of the performance variables. However, for the metabolizable energy level of the diets, it was observed that the reduction of 50 kcal/kg resulted in higher feed intake and worse feed conversion compared to the diets in the normal metabolizable energy treatment. Regarding the additive usage strategies, it was found that diets without additives resulted in higher feed intake and worse feed conversion than diets with emulsifier inclusion or emulsifier and polyphenols, with no effect on weight gain and weight at 42 days of age. No effect of the tested treatments was observed on carcass parameters and economic viability. It was concluded that the replacement of soybean oil with frying oil in meat quail diets was feasible, with no negative impact on performance, carcass yield, or economic viability; the reduction of metabolizable energy led to higher feed intake and worse feed conversion but did not affect weight gain; and the strategy of including emulsifier, either alone or in combination with a polyphenol-based additive, improved feed conversion, offsetting the additional cost of the additives. Thus, the use of frying oil with an emulsifier or combined with a polyphenolic additive in the diet of meat quails is a technically and economically viable alternative.