Skin and meat color changes in broiler chickens by feeding herbal pulps and animal waste as a source pigments

In order to investigate the effects of plant pigment sources (PPS) such as carrot pulp and tomato pomace and animal wastes pigment sources (APS) such as crab and shrimp waste on skin and meat color in broiler chicks similar amounts of these sources were added to the broiler diets in this research. This study was done at a 42-day period. One hundred and fifteen male broiler chicks from Ross 308 commercial strain were used as a Randomized Complete Block Design with 5 treatments, replicates and 10 pieces per replicate. The experimental groups were included controls, carrot pulp (50 g/kg diet) tomato pomace (50 g/kg diet), crab (50 g/kg diet) and shrimp waste (50 g/kg diet). To perform for colorimetric tests of broiler skin and meat 2–birds at day 42 randomly weighted and killed and a piece of the breast with skin was removed and after 24 hours of freezing, L*(brightness), a*(redness) and b (yellowness) parameters were evaluated by Minolta CR-400 colorimetric device. In the Colorimetric Results showed that experimental groups only affected the brightness of the skin, so that pigment sources resulted in darker skin (p<0.01). APS resulted in darker meat significantly (p<0.01). Animal pigment sources APS also caused yellower meat rather than control diet, significantly (p<0.05) but no significant changes were observed in red meat color and the red color was normal in all groups. This experiment showed that the pigment sources can effect meat and skin color in broiler.