Influence of humic substances on the broiler chicken´s meat

Due to great popularity of the chicken meat, the breeders try to improve yield of meat and its quality parameters, which leads to the application of various food additives such as those based on humic compounds. Those humic matters are used for their positive influence over the immunity system, metabolic functions and adaptability of the livestock organisms. Literature review sums up the experience with broiler chicken breeding and feeding. Further it deals with meat composition and its characteristics. The last part contains information of humic compounds and their influence over the live organism and compares the findings about the application of humic preparation into the livestock food portion. Practical part of this thesis researches the influence of humic preparation Humafit over the qualitative and quantitative parameters of the broiler chicken meat. Two groups of chicken were observed, experimental one and control one. Feeding of these two groups was held at the same time, whereas the experimental group was being fed with 200 ml of Humafit per 1000 l of supply water from 10th to 20th day of feeding. The research did not prove statistically important differences (p > 0.05) in chicken corpse weight such as in weight of each parts of the corpses. Differences in the protein content in the breast muscle were also not statisticaly demonstrative such as pH value of the breast and thigh muscle. Total amount of heme pigments in breast muscle of the experimental group was higher and this difference was statistically important (p = 0.049). The breast muscle of chicken in the control group showed up higher binding capacity for water, this difference was statistically important (p = 0.041). This finding correlates with sensory analysis results (|r| = 0.691), when the panelists rated the meat of the control group chicken as more flavorous. There is disunion among scientific studies in the opinion of humic compounds influence over the livestock organism. It is not possible to make a definite evaluation of humic compounds influence over the meat quality, because qualitative and quantitative parameters of the livestock meat depend on the number of intravital and external factors which can affect the experiment results