Breast meat quality of chickens with divergent growth rates and its relation to growth curve parameters
The effects of the increase of body weight of contemporary broilers during growth on functional meat quality and color characteristics of the chicken breast muscle are controversially debated. Therefore, male chickens (<i>n</i> = 264) of a fast-growing commercial broiler (Ross 308) an...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2017-11-01
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| Series: | Archives Animal Breeding |
| Online Access: | https://www.arch-anim-breed.net/60/427/2017/aab-60-427-2017.pdf |
| Summary: | The effects of the increase of body weight of contemporary broilers
during growth on functional meat quality and color characteristics of the
chicken breast muscle are controversially debated. Therefore, male chickens
(<i>n</i> = 264) of a fast-growing commercial broiler (Ross 308) and two
slow-growing experimental meat-type chicken lines were compared at equal age
and at similar body weight in order to investigate the effect of growth rate
on selected functional breast meat traits and meat color. Additionally, the
breast meat characteristics of birds with different growth profiles were
compared within lines. When the body weight of commercial broilers reached
about 40 to 60 % of their growth potential, they exhibited particularly
high ultimate pH values compared with slow-growing lines. The ability of the
meat of fast-growing broilers to retain water during cooking was impaired (5
to 16 percentage points increased cooking loss compared to slow-growing
lines), which, in contrast to pH, was only marginally affected by body weight
and/or age at slaughter. No unfavorable correlations of breast meat quality
traits with the growth profile, represented by growth curve parameters
derived from the Gompertz–Laird equation, were detected within any of the
investigated chicken lines. It is noteworthy that the associations of
ultimate pH and cooking loss with maximum growth speed indicate a
non-linear relationship. Thus, some of the functional characteristics of
breast meat of the fast-growing broiler resembled the white-striping defect
described for poultry meat, but the hypothesis that selection on increased
growth rates is detrimental for meat quality per se could not be
confirmed. In fact, an elevated growth potential in particular, i.e., body
weight at maturity, could have some beneficial effects for the water-holding
capacity of breast meat, regardless of the genotypic growth rate. |
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| ISSN: | 0003-9438 2363-9822 |