Table 5.
Means (and standard deviations) of carcass and meat quality parameters for the four types of enrichment material after implementing two different fasting times (0 and 12 h).
| Enrichment Material Treatments | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chain | Wood | Straw | Paper | P Fasting 2 | |
| Carcass weight 0 h (kg) 1 | 88.98 a ± 2.83 | 87.61 a ± 2.72 | 88.46 a ± 2.71 | 87.83 a ± 2.71 | * |
| Carcass Weight 12 h (Kg) | 81.36 b ± 2.71 | 85.13 b ± 2.71 | 82.73 b ± 2.71 | 82.99 b ± 2.72 | |
| Carcass yield (%) 2 | 74.50 ± 0.51 | 74.71 ± 0.44 | 74.49 ± 0.48 | 74.09 ± 0.49 | NS |
| Carcass Lean percentage (%) | 59.05 ± 0.68 | 58.79 ± 0.65 | 58.46 ± 0.64 | 59.27 ± 0.65 | NS |
| pHu SM | 5.48 ± 0.02 | 5.50 ± 0.09 | 5.50 ± 0.019 | 5.52 ± 0.019 | NS |
| ECu SM | 7.56 ± 0.3 | 8.03 ± 0.28 | 8.07 ± 0.27 | 7.88 ± 0.28 | NS |
| L* SM | 49.57 ± 0.61 | 50.27 ± 0.58 | 49.79 ± 0.57 | 49.59 ± 0.58 | NS |
| a* SM | 6.15 ± 0.36 | 5.74 ± 0.34 | 6.13 ± 0.34 | 6.31 ± 0.34 | NS |
| b* SM | 0.12 ± 0.1 | −0.19 ± 0.1 | 0.08 ± 0.1 | −0.07 ± 0.1 | NS |
1 Fasting times = 0 or 12 h. 2 Carcass lean percentage obtained using the Fat-O-Meat’er; pHu SM: muscle pH at Semimembranosus (SM) 24 h p.m.; ECu SM=electrical conductivity measured using the Semimembranosus; L*, a*, b*: Luminosity, redness and yellowness.3 * P < 0.05; the Means for carcass weight with different superscripts are significantly different due to fasting (column comparisons). No other significant effects were observed either for enrichment material treatment (row comparisons) or for interaction Enrichment*Fasting.