ABSTRACT
Meat quality is the result of the morphological structure of muscle and cellular mechanisms regulating skeletal muscle growth and development. Meat-type poultry have been selected for increased growth, carcass weight, breast muscle yield, reduced time to reach processing weight, and improved feed conversion (Havenstein et al., 1994a,b, 2003; Collins et al., 2014). An emphasis has been placed by the poultry breeding industry especially on increased growth rate, breast must yield and conformation. Despite positive changes in growth rate, feed conversion, and muscling, meat quality problems in the breast muscle have arisen in both meat-type broilers and turkeys.
