Browsing by Author "Coleman, Patience"

The glycolytic potential of muscles is a representation of the energy reserve of a muscle and takes into account all compounds that are present in the muscle, which can be converted into lactic acid. A total of 219 breast muscle samples from five hybrids of male broiler chickens were used in this study. All from fast growing lines, they hybrids used are Ross 508, Cobb, Hubbard H1, Ross 308 and Rowan. The birds were reared under the same conditions, and slaughtered randomly at different ages. The pH, initial and ultimate, glycogen and lactic acid were assessed in all the samples. The glycolytic potential was calculated using results from the lactate and glycogen analysis. Older birds were associated with low glycogen concentrations. Wooden Breast muscles showed a very high significant difference with pHu (P<0.0001) and high significant difference with glycolytic potential (P = 0.0004). Affected breast muscles were associated with high pHu values and low glycolytic potential, where there was strong positive correlation between pHu and Wooden Breast presentation (P<0.0001, r = 0.414), and a weak negative correlation between the glycolytic potential and the presentation of Wooden Breast (P<0.0001, r = -0.292). Among the hybrids, Hubbard H1 recorded the highest glycolytic potential mean value of 117.22 while Ross 308 had the least mean value of 105.9 ± 5.6.