Meat and bone quality of slow-growing male chickens raised with outdoor access in tropical climate
2021
Faustin Evaris, Esther | Sarmiento-Franco, Luis | Sandoval-Castro, Carlos A.
The possibility of using layer-type slow-growing male chickens in tropical climate to produce high quality meat without compromising bird’s bone quality was explored in this study. A total of 156, 1-day-old Rhode Island Red male chickens, were randomly assigned to 2 treatments (with and without outdoor access) with 6 replicates of 13 birds each and grown for 115 days. Results showed that birds grown with access to outdoors had higher ash content and lower fat amount in their breast and leg muscles, while protein was higher in the femoral muscle. Also, femur weight, femur Seedor index, tibia weight, tibia length and tibia Seedor index, as well as leg bones’ ash content were positively influenced (P < 0.05) by the housing system with outdoor access. This study demonstrates that it is possible to use slow-growing Rhode Island Red male chickens in tropical semiintensive rearing system to produce good quality meat while maintaining and improving bird’s bone quality.
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