The experimental materials comprised White Italian geese (128 males and 128 females) reared to 14 wk of age. The birds were fed standard diets ad libitum. Starting from 2 wk of age, 14 males and 14 females were killed at 2-wk intervals. The carcasses were divided into neck, wings, legs, breast, and back, which were then dissected into muscle, skin with fat, and bones. Before slaughter, the BW of males and females were 6,814 and 5,736 g, respectively. At 2 wk of age, more than half of total muscle content was in the legs (60.98%), and the rest was in the back (17.84%), neck (9.43%), breast (8.78%), and wings (2.97%). To 10 wk of age, the rate of muscle deposition was relatively slow in the legs (a decrease to 31.29%) and fast in the breast and wings (an increase to 34.12 and 12.90%, respectively). Age-related changes in the distribution of skin with fat in the carcass were smaller, compared with changes in muscle distribution. A rising tendency was observed in the muscle content of wings and breast and in the content of skin with fat in the wings and neck, whereas a falling tendency was observed in the other carcass parts. Over the first 8 wk, the proportion of bones decreased in the legs, back, and neck and increased in the wings and breast, as compared with the total bone weight in the carcass.

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of different dietary levels and sources of methionine (met) on the growth performance of turkeys, carcass and meat quality. a total of 816 hybrid converter turkeys in 6 groups and 8 replications were fed wheat-soybean meal-based diets supplemented with three sources of met: dl-isomer, l-isomer and dl-hydroxy analog (dlm, lm and mha, respectively). in four 4-week periods (from 1 to 16 weeks of age), the met content of turkey diets corresponded to the level recommended by nrc (1994) or was increased by approximately 50% to match the intake recommended by some breeding companies. increased dietary met content resulted in a higher final body weight (BW) of turkeys (P=0.002) and a lower feed conversion ratio (FCR) (P=0.049), but had no effect on carcass dressing percentage and most parameters of carcass quality. The higher dietary met level contributed to a decrease in meat ph, a lower contribution of redness and a smaller muscle fiber diameter (P=0.028, P=0.040 and P=0.004, respectively). The higher dietary Met level had no influence on the redox status of meat, but it reduced the incidence of lymphoid cell infiltration between muscle fibers threefold (P=0.003). Throughout the experiment, no significant differences were noted in the growth performance parameters of turkeys, irrespective of met source. mha contributed to higher abdominal fat content, lower dry matter (dm) content and lower catalase (caT) activity in breast meat, compared with dlm and lm. increased dietary met content, approximately 50% higher than that recommended by nrc (1994), regardless of Met source, led to higher final BW of turkeys, but had no effect on carcass dressing percentage and most parameters of carcass quality.