Effect of Rearing System and Genotype on Meat Yield Characteristics of Chicken

The study was conducted to determine the effect of rearing system and genotypes on carcass characteristics of chicken. Birds under semi-intensive system had free access to outside the house for taking natural feeds and supplement 50g balanced feed per bird per day. Birds were reared intensive and on an average 100 grams of feed was offered per day to each bird. In the study, 24 chicken from the farming system and 24 chicken from the semi scavenging system were used and slaughtered at 48 weeks of age by the following standard procedures and carcass characteristics were recorded. The results revealed that live weight, dark meat (%), breast meat(%), thigh meat (%), drumstick meat (%), skin (%), neck(%) and wing meat(%) of chicken from the farm were significantly higher to those kept in the semi scavenging system and rest were higher in semi scavenging system. Deshi chicken of semi scavenging were 20.24% heavier than that of farm. Deshi and Sonali chicken under farming system had higher in dressing (%), dark meat (%), breast meat (%), thigh meat (%), drumstick meat (%), wing meat (%) compared to semi scavenging counterpart. On the other hand, semi scavenging reared RIR and Fayoumi had higher in dressing (%), breast meat (%), breast: dark meat, neck (%), gizzard (%), liver (%) and spleen (%) than from farm chicken. From the study, it is concluded that higher and better carcass characteristics were obtained in farm but performance of Deshi chicken was better indicating higher meat both in farm and semi scavenging system. Better non-carcass components were found under semi scavenging system as compared to farming system of management