This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary
coconut oil as a medium-chain
fatty acid (MCFA) source on performance, carcass composition and serum
lipids in male broilers. A total of 540, one-day-old, male Arbor Acres broilers were randomly allotted to 1 of 5 treatments with each treatment being applied to 6 replicates of 18 chicks. The basal diet (i.e., R0) was based on corn and soybean meal and was supplemented with 1.5%
soybean oil during the starter phase (d 0 to 21) and 3.0%
soybean oil during the grower phase (d 22 to 42). Four experimental diets were formulated by replacing 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of the
soybean oil with
coconut oil (i.e., R25, R50, R75, and R100).
Soybean oil and
coconut oil were used as sources of long-chain
fatty acid and MCFA, respectively. The feeding trial showed that dietary
coconut oil had no effect on
weight gain, feed intake or feed conversion. On d 42, serum levels of total
cholesterol,
low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and
low-density lipoprotein/
high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were linearly decreased as the
coconut oil level increased (p<0.01).
Lipoprotein lipase, hepatic
lipase, and total
lipase activities were linearly increased as the
coconut oil level increased (p<0.01). Abdominal fat weight/eviscerated weight (p = 0.05), intermuscular fat width (p<0.01) and subcutaneous fat thickness (p<0.01) showed a significant quadratic relationship, with the lowest value at R75. These results indicated that replacement of 75% of the
soybean oil in diets with
coconut oil is the optimum level to reduce fat deposition and favorably affect
lipid profiles without impairing performance in broilers.