Morphological and meat quality of breast muscle of wild red jungle fowl and Malaysian indigenous chicken

The aims of this study were to define the morphological structure, to evaluate the collagen distribution and to determine the meat quality traits of breast muscle in wild Red Jungle fowl and Malaysian indigenous chickens. The Red Jungle fowl is the ancestor of the domestic fowl. The Malaysian indigenous or Gallus gallus Domesticus, commonly known as village chicken are crossbreed of the RJF with mixed exotic domestic breeds. Seven samples of breast muscle (Pectoralis major) from adult RJF (n=7) and Malaysian indigenous chickens (n=7) were used in this study. The wild RJF were captured from the secondary forests in Peninsular Malaysia, while the Malaysian indigenous chicken were collected from Jenderam Hilir, Sepang, Selangor. The parameters of meat quality evaluated were moisture and ash content, crude protein and fatty acids profile, pH and colour measurement, percentage of cooking loss and shear force value. For the morphological characteristics, the mean diameter of muscle fiber, cross-sectional area of muscle bundle and total number of muscle fiber were evaluated. The results revealed there were significant (p