Breast muscle abnormalities in broiler chickens

Abstract

In recent decades, global production of poultry meat has increased due to its affordable prices and good nutritional value. The latter has been achieved by intensive selection of broilers for increased growth rate, feed efficiency, breast yield and reduced abdominal fat deposition. On the other hand, intensive selection and increasing demand for poultry meat, as well as some environmental stressors, such as changes in environmental temperature, feeding regime, breeding technology, and improper handling procedures before slaughter, lead to increased susceptibility of animals to oxidative stress, resulting in poorer sensory and technological characteristics of chicken meat. As a result of intensive broiler production and the increase in breast muscle, various breast muscle abnormalities or myopathies have been observed. The most common ones include deep pectoral myopathy, pale, soft and exudative like meat, white striping, wooden-breast and spaghetti meat, which mainly affect the pectoralis major breast muscle and negatively influence the sensory and technological characteristics of breast meat. The muscle abnormalities have a detrimental effect on quality and nutritional value of meat, affect consumer compromise consumers acceptance, and cause economic losses in the meat processing industry.