| Summary: | <table style="height: 461px;" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="498" align="left"><tbody><tr><td height="461" align="left" valign="top"><p>The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of different feed additives (bee pollen extract, propolis extract, and probiotic) on meat quality of broiler chickens. A total of 180 one day-old broiler chicks of mixed sex (Ross 308) were randomly divided into 3 groups. Dietary treatments were as follows: basal diet, free of supplements (control group; C); basal diet plus 400 mg bee pollen extract per 1 kg of feed mixtures and 3.3 g probiotic preparation added to drinking water (group E1); basal diet plus 400 mg propolis extract per 1 kg of feed mixtures and 3.3 g probiotic preparation added to drinking water (group E2). In the experiment, the probiotic preparation based on <em>Lactobacillus fermentum </em>(1.10<sup>9</sup> CFU.g<sup>-1</sup> of bearing medium) was used. Fattening period lasted for 42 days. Feed mixtures were produced without any antibiotic preparations and coccidiostatics. Meat quality was evaluated by following technological properties: cooling, freezing and roasting loss; colour parameters based on CIELab system; and shear force. Both dietary supplementations led to decrease in cooling (<em>p </em>≤0.05) and freezing (<em>p</em> ≥0.05) losses compared with control. On the contrary, the supplemented diet tended to increase roasting losses (<em>p </em>≤0.05) and shear force values in thigh muscle (<em>p </em>≤0.05). Significantly higher L* values (<em>p </em>≤0.05) in breast and thigh muscles, as well as the b* values in thigh muscle, were found when broiler chickens were fed the supplements, especially bee pollen extract and probiotics. In addition, the supplements improve redness (a*) of meat. The redness of breast muscle appeared to be the most affected (<em>p</em> ≥0.05) by propolis extract plus probiotics supplementation, while thigh muscle had the highest value (<em>p </em>≤0.05) in bee pollen extract plus probiotics supplemented group. These findings suggested that the supplements have a beneficial effect on quality of chicken meat due to positive changes in most of quality indicators investigated in the study.</p></td></tr></tbody></table> <!--[endif] -->
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