Effect of Diet Dilution with Whole Triticale Grain on Body Weight, Carcass Composition, Physicochemical and Sensory Properties of Meat in Common Pheasants

Background: Considerable attention has recently been given to increasing the use of triticale as an ingredient of poultry diets. The application of whole cereal (including triticale) grain in poultry nutrition allows using cheaper farm-produced feeds, which significantly reduces feeding costs. The potential improvements in carcass composition and the physicochemical and sensory properties of pheasant meat may be an additional incentive to introduce triticale grain to pheasant farming. Objective: The effect of partial replacement of a complete diet with whole triticale grain on body weight, carcass weight, dressing percentage, carcass composition, physicochemical (pH15, WHC, L*, a*, b*) and sensory properties (aroma, tenderness, juiciness, taste) of meat in common pheasants aged 112 d was investigated. Methods: Pheasants were assigned to two dietary treatments (n = 40) at 71 d of age. Throughout the rearing (112 d), control pheasants were fed complete commercial diets for meat pheasants. Experimental birds received complete diets (1-70 d) followed (71-112 d) by a diet containing 50% whole triticale grain and 50% commercial diet. At the age of 112 d, all pheasants were individually weighed and 32 pheasants (8 males and 8 females per treatment) were selected for slaughter. The pH of breast and leg muscles was measured 15 min postmortem. After carcass dissection, breast and leg muscles were sampled to determine water holding capacity (WHC) and sensory properties, and samples of breast muscle were collected to determine the colour coordinates of L* (lightness), a* (redness) and b* (yellowness). Results: The addition of whole triticale grain to the ration caused a non-significant decrease in body weight, carcass weight, dressing percentage, and percentage of leg muscles and skin with subcutaneous fat in eviscerated carcass with neck, while increasing the percentage of breast muscles, wings significantly) and the remainder of the carcass. The whole triticale grain diet had no significant effect on the pH15 and WHC of breast and leg muscles. The breast muscles of experimental pheasants showed significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher redness, yellowness, tenderness, juiciness and taste desirability, whereas the leg muscles received significantly higher scores for aroma intensity and desirability, tenderness and juiciness compared to the muscles of control birds. Conclusions: The partial replacement of a commercial complete diet with whole triticale grain did not have any detrimental effect on the slaughter traits of game pheasants and positively affected the sensory properties, which may be an additional incentive to feed triticale grain diets to pheasants reared for meat.