Consequence of muscle hypertrophy on characteristics of Pectoralis major muscle and breast meat quality of broiler chickens1

Abstract

The structural and metabolic characteristics of the pectoralis major (P. major) muscle (i.e., breast muscle) and the quality of the resulting meat were studied in relation to breast muscle fiber development in broiler chickens. Six hundred birds originating from a commercial, grand parental, male heavy line (Hubbard-Europe, Châteaubourg, France) were kept under conventional breeding methods until their usual marketing age of 6 wk. For all birds, the plasma creatine kinase activity and the P. major muscle fiber cross-sectional area (CSA), glycolytic potential, lactate content, pH at 15 min postmortem, as well as the ultimate pH, CIELAB color parameters [lightness (L*), redness (a*), and yellowness (b*)], and drip loss of breast meat, were measured. Increased breast weight and yield were associated with increased fiber CSA, reduced muscle glycolytic potential, and reduced lactate content at 15 min postmortem. Therefore, P. major muscle exhibiting larger fiber CSA exhibited greater pH at 15 min postmortem and ultimate pH, produced breast meat with lower L* and reduced drip loss, and was potentially better adapted to further processing than muscle exhibiting small fiber CSA.

Increasing the incubation temperature between embryonic day 7 and 10 has no influence on the growth and slaughter characteristics as well as meat quality of broilers

“…Collin et al (2007) show that the MPS of 43-dayold broiler had a lower pH 24 h and higher drip loss if temperature was increased to 39.58C between ED 8 and 10. With regard to the meat colour values the gender difference of the L* values 20 min p.m. agree with an investigation by Berri et al (2007), although this result should not be overstated as the difference was only of visible 20 min p.m. The increase in the lightness, redness and yellowness values between 20 min and 24 h p.m. in the presented study is in accordance with the investigation of Petracci and Fletcher (2002).…”

“…Yahav et al (2004a) treated broiler eggs between ED 8 and 10 at 39.58C for 3 h/ day and analysed 4 day chicks, Maltby et al (2004) treated turkeys eggs between ED 9 and 12 at 38.58C and killed the animals at day 16 post-hatch, whereas Hammond et al (2007) treated laying hen eggs at 38.58C between ED 4 and 7 and killed the foetuses at ED 18. The histological analysis of the female MPS partly agrees with a study by Berri et al (2007) who showed that broiler hens have larger muscle fibre areas. The significantly lower fibre areas in the HT hens indicate that the manipulation during embryogenesis decreased the MFN.…”

“…Considering the meat quality parameters, the pH and EC values determined 24 h after slaughter were in a usual range compared to other investigations (Debut et al, 2003;Berri et al, 2005Berri et al, , 2007Werner et al, 2009) not indicating an irregular muscle-to-meat transition in the different groups. Collin et al (2007) show that the MPS of 43-dayold broiler had a lower pH 24 h and higher drip loss if temperature was increased to 39.58C between ED 8 and 10.…”

“…Considering the investigation of Berri et al (2007) who showed that broiler with a higher muscle fibre area had lower lightness and higher pH 24 h values it could be expected that the larger muscle fibre areas of the NT hens also affected the pH, EC and lightness values of the MPS. However, reports that investigated the impact of the muscle fibre size on the poultry meat quality are rather inconsistent.…”

Mitochondrial respiratory and antioxidative enzyme activities in turkey meat

“…The change is influenced by the decreasing pH values. Owens et al (2000), Petracci et al (2004) and Berri et al (2007) showed a negative correlation between the pH and the lightness of the meat. The pH values also explain the lightness differences between the MPS and MG, as the MG had generally higher pH values.…”