EFFECT OF AGE ON CARCASS, MEAT QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS AND NUTRITIONAL COMPOSITION OF NANDANAM TURKEY-II MEAT

unknown. The study was conducted to find out the effect of age on carcass, meat quality characteristics and nutritional composition of Nandanam Turkey-II. Totally twelve birds were separated into two different age groups viz., young (20 weeks) and adult (40 weeks). The birds were slaughtered and breast muscle was obtained. The carcass, meat quality characters, proximate composition, amino acid, fatty acid and cholesterol content of meat of two age groups were analysed. The carcass characteristics viz., edible offal weight, in-edible offal, blood weight, feather weight and head weight had significant difference (P<0.01) between two age groups. Meat quality characteristics viz., pH (P<0.05), muscle fibre diameter (P<0.01) and myofibrillar fragmentation index (P<0.01) of young turkey meat were significantly lower than adult turkey meat. The young turkey meat had significantly higher moisture content (P<0.01), while it showed significantly lower protein, fat and total ash content than adult turkey meat. The significant difference (P<0.05) was observed in lysine and phenylalanine and highly significant difference (P<0.01) was observed in arginine, isoleucine, threonine, valine, alanine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and glycine contents of meat from young and adult age groups of turkey. The meat of young turkey had significantly lower total saturated fatty acids (P<0.01), mono unsaturated fatty acids (P<0.05) and higher poly unsaturated fatty acids (P<0.01), P/S ratio when compared to adult turkey meat. The cholesterol content of young turkey meat was significantly (P<0.01) lower than adult turkey meat. Based on the results it was concluded that the meat of young Nandanam Turkey-II had the superior meat quality characters and nutritional composition than the meat of adult birds.