Effect of Dietary L-Carnitine Supplementation with Animal Fat on Carcass Characteristics of Broiler Chicken

Study was carried out to find out the effect of L-carnitine supplementation on carcass characteristics in Venncobb broiler chicks fed with diet containing animal fat. Eighty day old commercial broiler chicks were randomly allotted to two treatment groups (T1 and T2) with four replicates of ten chicks each. The birds were fed with standard broiler chicken ration (BIS, 1992) containing 5% animal fat. T1 was the control, while T2 was supplemented with L-carnitine (900 mg/kg feed). At the end of 42 days, five birds from each treatment were slaughtered in order to determine carcass traits and organ weights. The results revealed that the supplementation of L-carnitine lowered the abdominal fat content of birds. However, L-carnitine supplementation had no effect on the body weight gain, slaughter weight, carcass weight, dressing percentage, giblet yield percentage and weight of internal organs.