Volume: 57 Issue: 1
Year: 2026, Page: 104-111, Doi: https://doi.org/10.51966/jvas.2026.57.1.104-111
Received: Sept. 12, 2025 Accepted: Nov. 3, 2025 Published: March 31, 2026
In the current study, leg muscle samples of commercially available (CA) broiler chicken slaughtered traditionally by neck severance and cold slaughtered (CS) broiler chicken carcasses were compared for their physico-chemical characteristics. Sample harvesting was carried out at 0-2, 2-4, 4-6 and 6-8 h post mortem. The pH revealed significantly (p<0.01) lower values in CS leg samples compared to CA leg samples at all times of sample collection except at 6-8 h. Significantly lower pH values were recorded in samples collected at increasing post mortem time intervals with mean pH values shifting from 6.3±0.05 at 0-2 h to 5.78±0.05 at 6-8 h in CA samples. Water holding capacity (WHC) decreased significantly as time of sample collection post mortem increased with significantly lower WHC in CS group (48±0.894 % at 6-8 h), and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) values increased significantly as time of sample collection post mortem increased with mean values of 0.26±0.01 and 0.5±0.02, in CA and CS samples respectively at 6-8 h. The L* values were higher in CA samples whereas a* and b*colour values were higher in CS samples. As time of sample collection post mortem increased, the mean a* values decreased from 3.9±0.33 at 0-2 h to 2.54±0.35 at 6-8 h in CA samples and from 11.17±0.76 at 0-2 h to 9.48±0.84 at 6-8 h in CS samples. In both CA and CS samples, L* values increased significantly as time of sample collection post mortem increased. Haem iron, haemoglobin and myoglobin contents of muscle samples were significantly higher in CS group, but as the time of sample collection post mortem increased the difference became less significant.
Keywords: Broiler chicken meat, cold slaughter, commercial, post mortem, meat pigments
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© 2026 Balakrishnan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Balakrishnan., A., Vasudevan V.N., Irshad A., Sasi, S., Uma, R. & Nair, S.N. (2026). Physicochemical characteristics of commercially available and cold slaughtered broiler chicken meat, Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, 57(1), 104-111 https://doi.org/10.51966/jvas.2026.57.1.104-111