Camelina seed or seed processing derivatives, i.e., cake, are cheap alternative protein feed ingredients for meat type poultry. Camelina is an oilseed crop containing 36.8% oil in seeds, while in the cake the oil content accounts for 6.4–22.7%. If compared with other Brassicaceae family plants, camelina is distinguished by a unique fatty acid composition, because the content of α-linolenic fatty acid (C18:3n-3; ALA) varies from 25.9 to 36.7% of total fatty acids. The total tocopherol content in camelina oil and cake are, respectively, 751–900 and 687 mg/kg. Addition of camelina to poultry nutrition increases the amount of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in poultry meat and liver. The content of ALA in chicken muscles increases by 1.3–4.4, 2.4–2.9 and 2.3–7.2 times after supplementing chicken diets with, respectively, camelina cake (8–24%), seed (10%), and oil (2.5–6.9%) in comparison with the control group. Camelina cake (5–25%), seed (10%) and oil (2.5–4%) inclusion in chicken diets results in 1.5–3.9 times higher total n-3 PUFA content in muscles and liver. Meanwhile, supplementation of chicken diets with camelina oil (4–6.9%), seed (5–10%) and cake (5–25%) results in, respectively, a 1.8–8.4, 1.6–1.9 and 1.3–2.9 times lower n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio in muscles, and 3.29 times lower n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio in the liver. After inclusion of different amounts of camelina cake in chicken diets, a healthy for human nutrition n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio from 1.6 to 2.9 was found in chicken muscles.

The objective of the study was to determine the effects of dietary hempseed or camelina cakes rich in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) on the fatty acid profile of liver lipids and carcass characteristics of ducks. A total of 108 one-day-old male ducks were allocated to 3 dietary treatments. The Control (C) group diet was supplemented with 15 and 20% rapeseed cake from days 1 to 23 and 24 to 49, respectively, whereas the rapeseed in Experimental 1 (HE) and Experimental 2 (CA) was replaced by hempseed cake and camelina cake in the same proportion, respectively. Inclusion of dietary hempseed cake resulted in higher carcass yield (P < 0.05) and growth performance (P < 0.05) but did not increase the proportion of liver n-3 PUFA (P > 0.05). Dietary enrichment with camelina cake reduced carcass yield (P < 0.05), feed intake (P < 0.01) but had no significant effect on the body weight and feed conversion ratio (P > 0.05) of ducks. The amount of n-3 PUFA and long-chain (LC) n-3 PUFA in the CA group was 2.47 and 2.35 times (P < 0.01) higher compared with that of the C group, respectively. The inclusion of dietary camelina has helped to produce a healthier human nutrition liver with an n-6/n-3n PUFA ratio of 3.38 .