Due to the increasing demand for producing chickens with high meat quality, there is a need to determine its mode of action on chicken meat quality traits across a wider age spectrum. In this study, five groups of 200 male Da-Heng meat type birds were reared until slaughter age of 60, 90, 120, 150, 180 days old and breast muscle performance, meat quality traits, and myofiber characteristics were evaluated. The larger body weight and breast weight of chicken are based on larger myofiber diameter and area, less myofiber density for the older birds than younger birds. There was an age effect on all meat quality traits of chicken breast muscle (p < 0.05). Older chickens often presented a higher pH, lower drip loss, higher shear force, darker, and redder breast meat. The correlation coefficients showed that myofiber characteristics played an important role in breast pH values, drip loss, and meat color (p < 0.05). Besides, significant correlations were also found between meat quality traits (p < 0.05). Further studies are needed to explore the biochemical character and potential molecular mechanism of chicken breast muscle to determine the factors that causes these age-related differences in meat quality in the current study.
Keywords: chicken; meat quality; myofiber; slaughter age.