Influencia de la harina de zapallo (Cucúrbita moschata) como pigmentante de la yema de huevo

The objective of this study is to evaluate the influence of wholemeal pumpkin flour (Cucurbita moschata), macre variety, as a pigment in egg yolk. A total of 240 hens of the Hy-Line Brown line, with 52 weeks of age and an average weight of 1.98 kg, which were located for 60 days and were totally randomly distributed in 3 treatments with a total of 80 hens. per experimental unit. For the determination of the pigmentation of the egg yolk, 8 eggs were chosen at random for each treatment. The inclusion of whole pumpkin flour significantly influenced the productive behavior, thus showing that in the last two weeks the T2 treatment presented the highest weight gain with an average of 1931±135 and 1923±109 respectively in each of the weeks. Regarding the weight of the egg, the results showed that during the first, second, fourth, sixth and seventh weeks, the T2 treatment presented the highest weight, reaching a range of 60.24 g to 63.00 g, while the fifth week the treatment T1 obtained the highest average weight with a total of 64.13 g. Regarding the fixation of egg yolk pigments, treatment T2 (whole pumpkin flour) presented the highest pigment fixation, reaching a fixation of 108 points after 45 days based on the Roche colorimetric scale.