Effect of breed on meat quality in Japanese quails - Coturnix coturnix japonica
2013
Ribarski, S., Thrakia University, Stara Zagora (Bulgaria) | Genchev, A., Thrakia University, Stara Zagora (Bulgaria)
At present, Japanese quails are reared in many countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and America for eggs and meat production. In the USA and Europe, producers are oriented to breeds with superior meat traits. In our country, two Japanese quail breeds are generally preferred for industrial scale production – the meat type Pharaoh and the all-purpose Manchurian Golden breeds. The purpose of the present study was to establish the effect of quail breed on the quality of produced meat. The two groups of quails were slaughtered at 35 days of age after 4-hour fasting period. The physicochemical properties of meat - рН, muscle colour on the CIE L*a*b* system and water holding capacity from two breast muscles - m. Pectoralis superficialis - MPS and m. Pectoralis profundus - MPP were investigated. In both breeds, pH values of studied breast muscles were similar, suggesting that glycogen depots in breast muscles and the post mortem anaerobic glycolysis rate were almost comparable. The absolute reduction of pH values - ΔрНabs was less pronounced in Pharaoh quails, while the breast meat of this breed had better water holding capacity - WHC. The analysis of meat colour traits showed similar values of L* in both breeds. The а* and b* values were higher in MPS - Р0.001 than in MPP. During meat storage, a* values increased until the 24th hour, especially in MPP - Р0.05. A similar trend was present for b* values, but differences were not statistically significant. The data for colour coordinates L*, a* and b* allowed for determination of the colour difference - ΔЕ*, which was considerable for MPP Р0.05. At the background of lower a* and b* values of Pharaoh quail meat, observed chroma values С* were also lower. During storage, C* values increased, with more pronounced differences for MPP - Р0.01. The Hue angle - ho did not change significantly during that time, despite the slight tendency towards reduction of values.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Institute of Agricultural Economics