Factors Affecting Breast Myopathies in Broiler Chickens and Quality of Defective Meat: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Fast-growing broiler chickens are subjected to breast myopathies such as white striping (WS), wooden breast (WB), and spaghetti meat (SM). Available studies about risk factors for myopathy occurrence often used flock data whereas a few reports evaluated chicken individual data. Thus, the present study aimed to elucidate the effect of growth and slaughter traits, besides sex and genotype on myopathy occurrence. Data were obtained from eight experimental trials, which used a total of 6,036 broiler chickens. Sex, genotype, daily weight gain, slaughter weight, and breast yield were evaluated as potential risk factors by logistic regression analyses. Then, the effects of myopathy and sex were evaluated on meat rheological traits (pH, colour, cooking losses and shear force). Based on a logistic regression, WS occurrence was associated with genotype, breast weight, and breast yield. Compared with chickens with intermediate breast weight and breast yield, higher odds of having WS were found in chickens with high breast weight (OR: 1.49) and yield (OR: 1.27), whereas lower odds were found in those with low breast weight (OR: 0.57) and yield (OR: 0.82). As for WB and SM, females had lower odds of having WB (OR: 0.55) and higher odds of showing SM (OR: 15.4) compared to males. In males, higher odds of having WB were found in chickens with a high daily weight gain (OR: 1.75) compared to those with an intermediate daily weight gain. In females, higher odds of having SM were associated to a high slaughter weight (OR: 2.10) while lower odds to a low slaughter weight (OR: 0.87). As for meat quality, only WB meat was clearly different for some technological and sensorial properties, which can play a major role also in meat processing. In conclusion, our analysis identified breast development as a potential risk factor for WS, while a high growth was the risk factor for WB and SM. A different probability of having WB or SM in females and male was found.

Effect of light restriction on productive results and behavior of broiler chickens

“…According to Bailey et al (2020) , the heritability of myopathies is rather low (0.25 for WS and 0.07 for WB), whereas non-genetic factors are of greater importance in the development of defective meat. Thus, nor the present or previous studies ( Trocino et al, 2015 ; Bordignon et al, 2022 ) found relevant differences in WS occurrence among fast-growing genotypes. On the other hand, as for WB in males, Bordignon et al (2022) found that WB occurrence was significantly affected by genotype with large differences in the odds of having WB among 3 commercial genotypes.…”

“…The etiology of these muscle abnormalities has not been fully elucidated, although literature data imply that heritability has a negligible role ( Bailey et al, 2020 ) and environmental and/or management factors contribute more than 90% of the variance of WB occurrence and more than 65% of the variance of WS ( Bailey et al, 2015 ). Increased LW is a risk factor for both WB and WS occurrence ( Che et al, 2022 ), whereas the association between high-breast yield and WB and WS development has also been reported ( Lake et al, 2020 ; Bordignon et al, 2022 ). Some authors ( Trocino et al, 2015 ; Pascual et al, 2020 ) found that sex plays a role in the occurrence and severity of the different myopathies.…”

Feeding broiler chickens with arginine above recommended levels: effects on growth performance, metabolism, and intestinal microbiota

“…However, in contrast to the substantial improvement in growth rate and BW observed here, it should be noted that arginine supplementation tested in the studies just cited did not exert a positive effect on BW gain. Previous research has established that breast muscle abnormalities of fastgrowing, high meat-yielding broilers are deeply related to their extraordinary growth potential: the higher the growth performance, the greater the risk of myopathy onset [59][60][61]. It is therefore very likely that the significant arginine-mediated growth promotion exacerbated WS rather than the supplemental dietary arginine per se.…”

Nutritional Strategies to Improve Meat Quality and Composition in the Challenging Conditions of Broiler Production: A Review

“…Through more than 70 years of intense genetic selection and effective nutritional programs, increased body weight, growth rates, and feed efficiency have been achieved among modern broiler chickens [ 14 ]. Genetic selection programs and nutritional programs have been designed to produce broilers with higher breast meat yields and body weight without considering fat accumulation, resulting in high levels of fat accumulation in modern broilers [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. The increased production of breast meat has resulted in a decrease in leg meat production in modern broilers due to a change in body shape [ 19 ].…”