The effect of the crossing of Yellow Hungarian chicken breed with different commercial lines on meat production and meat quality

Arpad Drobnyak1,2, Laszlo Bodi13, Monika Heincinger4, Karoly Kustos4, Istvan Tibor Szalay1,3, Anita Almasi5, Agnes Zimboran2, Rubina Tunde Szabo2, Maria Weber2
1 Research Centre for Farm Animal Gene Conservation (HáGK), H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary
2 SzentIstvánUniversity, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Animal Husbandry, H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary
3 Association for Hungarian Farm Animal Gene Conservation, H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary
4 Lab-nyúlKft., H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary
5 Bábolna Tetra Kft., H-2943 Bábolna, Hungary

Abstract

Drobnyak, A., Bodi, L., Heincinger, M., Kustos, K., Szalay, I. T., Almasi, A., Zimboran A., Szabo R. T. & Weber, M. (2019). The effect of the crossing of Yellow Hungarian chicken breed with different commercial lines on meat production and meat quality. Bulgarian Journal of Agricultural Science, 25 (6), 1281–1286

In the recent decades, new customer preference has appeared in the market for better quality and non-intensive products. The crossbred genotypes, based on old Hungarian breeds, can play the main role in the quality production and participate in gene conservation.
The aim of this study was to establish and compare the meat production and meat quality of purebreds (Yellow Hungarian breed (YH), TETRA-H (T), TETRA HARCO (H)) and their crossbreds. 160 birds of each genotype were raised in same condition and were slaughtered at the age of 84 days.
The T x YH (2480 g) and YH x T (2276 g) groups had a significantly higher live weight than the purebred YH (1580 g) genotype. The live weight of T and YH genotypes in both combinations were even significantly higher than the weight of H x YH (1656 g) and YH x H (1677 g). The results were similar in cases of carcass weight, breast fillet weight and leg weight. No significant differences were found in carcass percentage. The breast fillet rate of the YH x T genotype and YH were 17% and 14% respectively and valuable meat parts were 52% and 48%. In the case of pH values, considerable differences were not established. The breast meat of YH x H had more redness (4.52) than T x YH (1.28) and YH x T (1.58) genotypes. The YH (2.04 kg) has smaller shear force value than T x YH (3.23 kg) and H x YH (2.99 kg).
According to the results, the meat production of crossbreds was better than that of YH purebred. The meat production of crossbred genotypes was more favourable than the production results of purebred YH, but the meat quality parameters were not changed.

Keywords: reciprocal cross; genotype; meat quality; Yellow Hungarian; carcass percentages; breast pH; tenderness

See the article as a PDF.