Studies on Meat Quality of Broilers. II

The collavolative experiment was carried out to study the effect of age of chickens on fat content in abdomen, chemical composition in leg muscle and the taste of meat.Experimental chickens (Hubbard) which hatched at 2 weeks intervals were reared by practical soybean-corn type diet. At 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 weeks old, they were sacrificed at the same time.It was observed that there were high correlations between age of chickens abdominal fat (male: r=0.965, female: r=0.998). With age of chikens, the content of moisture in leg musle linearly decreased, and on the contrary fat content increased. Correlation coefficients between moisture and fat content in female were -0.979 and 0.983, respectively. Also the contents of crude protein, inosinic acid and thickness of fiber in muscle were tended to increase with age of chickens.In sensory test, steamed thigh muscle with common salt was used. Younger broiler meat was clearly felt to be softer smell and more tasteful. On the whole, panerists showed that softer meat was better, namely younger broiler was better.