• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2009

This study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary supplementation with chitosan feeding levels and feeding forms on the performance, proximate composition, pH, thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS), water holding capacity (WHC), shear force, meat color, and fatty acid of chicken thigh meat. Two hundred broilers (Arbor Acre Broiler, male) were randomly assigned to five groups and were fed for five weeks and slaughtered. Thigh muscle was evaluated in this experiment. The amounts of proximate composition, crude fat of control and T3 for the chitosan-treated groups were significantly higher as compared with T2 (P<0.05), but no significant effects were detected on moisture, crude protein, and crude ash. By comparison, pH was significantly increased when chitosan was included at 2% into diet or more than 1% into drinking water. TBARS was significantly lower at chitosan treated groups it was decreased with increasing chitosan level in the diets (P<0.05). Therefore, chitosan had the possibility to improve shelf life of chicken meat. Higher chitosan levels and feeding additive increased high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and reduced total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (P<0.05). $L^*$ and $a^*$ of chitosan treated group was higher than the control. As the dietary chitosan levels increase, the composition of palmitic acid and oleic acid levels was increased, however, those but the rates of linoleic acid and arachidonic acid were decreased. It is concluded that dietary chitosan has a positive effect on increasing HDL-C and oleic acid and decreasing total-C, LDL-C and TBARS values. Therefore, the treatment with the most significant effects in the current study was the high level of chitosan.