Analysis of Physical-Chemical, Microbiological Parameters in Turkey Breast Meat With Bursitis and Ascites Pathological Lesions

Abstract

Non-infectious poultry diseases are very important in respect to worse quality of produced poultry meat including safety and public health issues. The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of ascites and bursitis during post-mortem examination slaughtered turkeys, and to determine possible influence of asites and bursitis on physical-chemical parameters and bacterial contamination of turkey meat. For the survey, turkeys of the same breed (BIG - 6, age of 146 d, males) raised in the same farm were selected. After postmortem examination slaughtered turkeys carcasses were divided in to the following groups: control group for bursitis (CB) - no lesions; groups according to severity of the bursitis lesions: IB, IIB, IIIB. On the same basis groups were created for study of poultry carcasses affected by different levels of ascites. Methods. Methods. These turkey meat quality parameters were analysed: dry matter, proteins, cooking loss, meat hardness, moisture content, coherence of meat water, ash, meat colorfulness, fat, pH, enumeration of E. coli, Enterobacteriaceae andocoagulase positive Staphylococci. Comparison of the physical and chemical parameters of the turkey meat from carcasses with different level of bursitis revealed that the bursitis of level III, in comparison with control group, has biggest influence on the qualitative parameters of turkey meat. pH of such meat was 0.26 higher (p<0.001), meat colorfulness L* 5.86, a* 0.47, the moisture content was 0.29% lower (p<0.001) compare to the levels of control group, coherence of meat water was 1.78% higher. Hardness of meat was 0.33 kg/cm² higher in comparison to the parameter of control group (p<0.05-<0.001). [...].