Dietary resveratrol supplement improves carcass traits and meat quality of Pekin ducks

Abstract With the increase of consumer demand for high quality animal protein, it becomes imperative to improve meat quality through nutritional strategy. Resveratrol is a plant polyphenol that exists in grapes and grape products, it has been considered as a potential functional feed additive. Here, we aimed to explore the optimal dose of resveratrol in Pekin ducks diet and its effect on improving meat quality. A total of 432 male Pekin ducks (1d-old) were selected and randomly allotted to 4 treatment groups, each group contain 6 replicates. Four different levels of resveratrol were evaluated (0,150, 300, 450 mg/kg) for 42 days. The carcass traits, meat quality, and muscle fiber characteristics of Pekin ducks were investigated. Results showed that a*24h, b*24h, intramuscular fat, crude protein, total flavor amino acid content of duck breast muscle and a*45min of duck leg muscle were increased (P