Carcass characteristics and meat quality traits of the Padovana chicken breed, a commercial line, and their cross

The objective of this study was to compare the Padovana Camosciata local chicken breed (PC; n=59), the slow-growing line Berlanda-Gaina (BG; n=62), and their cross (BGxPC; n=57) for carcass and meat quality features. Animals were reared under the same experimental conditions and slaughtered at 3 different ages. An analysis of variance was performed on carcass and meat traits using a linear model that included fixed effects of genotype, sex, age at slaughter, and interactions between them. The PC local breed was approximately 1 kg lighter (P<0.001) at slaughter and exhibited greater dressing percentage (+1.50%; P<0.05) than BG. Breast skin of PC was bluer (-2.74; P<0.001), and breast muscle was darker (-2.65; P<0.001) and redder (+0.48; P<0.001) than that of BG. The pH (+0.16; P<0.001), thawing (+0.90%; P<0.01) and cooking (+2.28%; P<0.001) losses determined on breast muscle were higher for PC than BG. Crossbred animals performed better than the average of BG and PC chickens for breast weight (+22.81 g; P<0.01) and dressing percentage (+1.38%; P<0.05). Breast skin of BGxPC was darker (-1.74; P<0.05), less red (-0.23; P<0.05), and bluer (-1.54; P<0.01) than the average of BG and PC, and breast muscle was more yellow (+0.64; P<0.05) for BGxPC. Cooking losses were lower (-0.99%; P<0.05) for crossbred than the average of BG and PC chickens. Results confirmed the specificity of meat characteristics of PC local breed and demonstrated the potential benefit of crossbreeding to improve production traits of PC breed without compromising the peculiar quality of its meat.