Increasing content of healthy fatty acids in egg yolk of laying hens by cheese byproduct

This study investigated the effects of dietary supplementation of cheese byproduct on performance, egg quality and fatty acid profile of egg yolk lipids from laying hens. One hundred five 30-wk-old White leghorn laying hens were randomly distributed into five groups of twenty one hens each and maintained in individual laying cages for 4 weeks. The hens were assigned to five treatments that consisted of corn-soybean meal based diets containing 0, 1, 3, 5 or 10% of cheese byproduct. Feed intake and rate of egg production of hens were not significantly different across the treatments during the whole experiment (p>0.05). Similarly, egg yolk cholesterol level, egg weight, Haugh's unit, eggshell thickness, color, and strength were not significantly different across the treatments (p>0.05). The amount of C 16:0 in egg yolk was not significantly different across the treatments, but that of C 18:0 decreased with increased cheese byproduct (p<0.01). Monounsaturated fatty acid (C 16:1 and C 18:1) content in egg yolk was similar across the treatments. Total CLA and cis-9, trans-11 CLA content increased linearly with increased cheese byproduct (p<0.001), while trans-10, cis-12 CLA amount was not significantly different across the treatments (p>0.05). Total saturated fatty acid (SFA) in the egg yolk was decreased as the level of cheese byproduct including CLA increased (p<0.01). However, the amount of unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) such as monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), n-6 PUFA, and total PUFAs in the egg yolk were not significantly different across the treatments (p>0.05). Therefore, the present results showed that cheese byproduct beneficially improved the fatty acid composition of concern to human health in the egg yolk without adverse effects on egg quality.