Ofosu I.W., Appiah-Nkansah E., Owusu L., Apea-Bah F.B., Oduro I., Ellis W.O.
Biochemistry and Biotechnology Department, Faculty of Biosciences, College of Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Kwabenya - Accra, Ghana
Ofosu, I.W., Biochemistry and Biotechnology Department, Faculty of Biosciences, College of Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; Appiah-Nkansah, E., Biochemistry and Biotechnology Department, Faculty of Biosciences, College of Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; Owusu, L., Biochemistry and Biotechnology Department, Faculty of Biosciences, College of Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; Apea-Bah, F.B., Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Kwabenya - Accra, Ghana; Oduro, I., Biochemistry and Biotechnology Department, Faculty of Biosciences, College of Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; Ellis, W.O., Biochemistry and Biotechnology Department, Faculty of Biosciences, College of Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
Now a days, intensely farmed poultry eggs show almost no differences in egg yolk and albumin compared with domestic layers. Annatto shrub grows rapidly to produce seeds coated with bixin and norbixin dyes which are used to color foods requiring no limits according to codex standards because they are generally regarded as safe for food applications. In this research, annatto concentrate prepared at 1:1 feed to annatto seeds was applied at 1, 4, 7 and 10% over 8 months. The results show that such feeds had no effect on the egg size (P > 0.05) (mean = 62.25 g) as well as proximate composition of feed and flavor of the resulting egg yolks, while rate of application of concentrate show significant (P < 0.05) effect on overall preference of egg yolk of layers fed up to 7%. It is recommended that annatto concentrate can be applied at 1% to give generally acceptable color intensity. © 2010, The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2010, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.