Nutritional and feeding strategies for controlling breast muscle myopathy occurrence in broiler chickens: a survey of the published literature

Angela Torcino; Gerolamo Xiccato; Massimiliano Petracci; Marija Bošković-Cabrol

doi:10.18485/meattech.2023.64.2.5

Angela Torcino Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), University of Padova
Gerolamo Xiccato aDepartment of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), University of Padova
Massimiliano Petracci Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences (DISTAL), Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna
Marija Bošković-Cabrol aDepartment of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), University of Padova

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18485/meattech.2023.64.2.5

Keywords: White striping, Wooden Breast, Spaghetti meat, Nutritional manipulation, Feed additives

Abstract

Myopathies of the breast muscle in broiler chickens are a great concern of modern poultry production because of the economic losses associated with the waste of unfit meat, the effects on meat nutritional quality for food and on meat technological quality for processing, and last, but not less important, the effects on animal welfare and health. Largely spread in fast-growing genotypes, these muscle defects have a low hereditability for which genetic selection for their control seems to be a weak strategy or, at least, a weak long-term strategy. On the other hand, several investigations have been performed on the physiological mechanisms triggering the onset and the evolution of myopathies, and different non-genetic strategies have been proposed to control their in vivo occurrence. Thus, the present paper aimed to analyse the scientific literature investigating the effects of feeding and nutritional strategies on the occurrence of myopathies to find out the most tested strategies, the most promising ones and, in perspective, strengths and weakness of the same strategies.