Effects of plant extracts and essential oils as feed supplements on quality and microbial traits of rabbit meat

The effects of dietary supplementation with onion, cranberry and strawberry extracts and essentials oils on meat quality were analysed. Five groups of 48 Grimaud female weaned rabbits received the supplemented or the control ration; the experimental unit was a cage of 6 rabbits. Each experimental diet contained 10 ppm of added active ingredients. Rabbits were fed with the experimental diets for 4 wk before determining slaughter and carcass traits and determining the pH at 1 and 24 h post mortem (pHu) of the Longissimus dorsi (LD) and the Biceps femoris muscle, left and right, respectively. Cooking loss, drip loss and L*, a* and b* colour parameters were obtained for the right LD and for ground meat and antioxidant status (TBARS, DNPH, Folin Ciocalteu) was measured. Only the pHu of the LD muscle for the strawberry supplemented group was significantly lower when compared to the control group (P=0.04). However, we note that for the pH of the LD, the average was less than 6 for the meat of animals that received a diet enriched in polyphenols, compared to the control group. Plant extract supplementation did not influence meat quality traits, growth performance or oxidative stability. However, under aerobic and anaerobic conditions, our results indicate that dietary supplementation with extracts rich in polyphenols, especially with essential oils, had a small but sporadic positive effect in reducing bacterial microflora compared to the control group (P