Prevalence of White Striping and Wooden Breast on broiler meat subjected coccidiosis to different control programs

White Striping (WS) and Wooden Breast (WB) are alterations of broiler meat characterised by white striation parallel to the direction of muscle fibres, and paleness and harness of the meat, respectively. In this study the effects of coccidiosis control system and low energy diet on WS and WB prevalence were evaluated. One day-old chicks (Ross 708) were randomly divided in 4 groups of 140 each and assigned to 4 treatments: Control (C), Coccidiostat (Cox), Vaccinated (V), and Vaccinated fed with a Low Energy diet (VLE). Birds were slaughtered at 51 days of age and breasts were scored for both WS and WB based on the severity of condition as: 0= normal, 1= moderate, 2= severe. No body weight (BW) and average daily gain (ADG) differences were observed between Cox (BW 3.7±0.3 kg ADG 71.1±5.5 g/day), V (BW 3.6±0.4 kg ADG 69.6±6.9 g/day) and VLE (BW 3.7±0.3 kg ADG 71.2±6.3 g/day) groups, being the difference C (BW 3.5±0.3 kg ADG 67.6±5.8 g/day) vs Cox and VLE significant (P<0.05). The total WS prevalence was above 90% and no differences were observed among groups. The prevalence of WS score 2, covariated by the BW, showed a difference (P<0.01) between Cox (77.6%) and C (61.6%), V (62.6%), VLE (64.4%). The WB prevalence was 64% (C), 51.3% (Cox), 53.4% (V), 55.7% (VLE), and no differences were observed among groups. The use of vaccine resulted in a reduction of WS grade 2 but had no effect on WB. Diet had no effect on WS and WB prevalence.