EGG CHOLESTEROL LEVEL AND BLOOD BIOCHEMICAL PROFILE OF SIX SPECIES OF POULTRY UNDER EXTENSIVE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

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EGG CHOLESTEROL LEVEL AND BLOOD BIOCHEMICAL PROFILE OF SIX SPECIES OF POULTRY UNDER EXTENSIVE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

1.0    INTRODUCTION

The poultry industry is a highly profitable business in Nigeria (Adebambo et al., 1999) and it is one area of animal production with significant contribution to human food production in egg and meat. Poultry products provide protein of high biological value (Epstein, 1990). Nigeria is endowed with many poultry species which are indigenous to the country and includes: the domestic fowl, pheasant, quail, guinea fowl, pigeon, turkey, goose and Muscovy ducks (Oluyemi and Roberts, 2007). These have lived, adapted and reproduced for several years in the Nigeria environment. Food and Agriculture Organization (2001) estimated poultry population in Nigeria to be about 33million.

With the ever growing population and improvement in the living standard of Nigerians, the demand for egg and other poultry products will continue to grow. As this increase continues, the quality of food, a substantial part of which is formed by the poultry and other agricultural animals becomes increasingly important with growing consumer awareness for healthy aspect of food. The health concerns include not only pathogens or traces of contaminations but also the compositions and nutritional values of the products (Mennicken et al., 2005).

Egg is the only complete food material because it contains all of the six classes of food. Its nutritive quality for both man and for the transformation of a fertile egg into a living organism makes it a perfect biological composition (Trziszka, 2000). As a complete food, eggs are inexpensive and low calorie source of nutrients such as folate, riboflavin, selenium, choline vitamin-12 and vitamin A, K and D. The lipid matrix of the egg yolk serves to enhance the bio-availability of nutrients such as lutein and zeaxanthin (Herron and Fernadez, 2004).

The physiology and chemistry of blood are being used daily as indicators for various diseases in birds (Harr, 2002; Hauptmanova et al., 2006). However; these values are affected by different factors such as nutrition, age and sex and presence or absence of disease (Fudge 2000; Kececi and Col, 2011).

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EGG CHOLESTEROL LEVEL AND BLOOD BIOCHEMICAL PROFILE OF SIX SPECIES OF POULTRY UNDER EXTENSIVE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM