Authors : W.G. Xia, A.Y. Abdullahi, J.J. Zuo, L. Chen and D.Y. Feng
Abstract: Nine hundred, 42 days old male yellow-feathered broilers were used to evaluate the effects of Creatine Monohydrate (CMH) on growth performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality. The birds received either a no-CMH diet (0 mg kg-1) a low (250 mg kg-1), a moderate (500 mg kg-1) or a high-CMH diet (1000 mg kg-1) for 21 days. CMH supplementation did not affect the average daily weight gain, average daily feed intake or feed efficiency. Additionally no significant differences were discovered in the dressing, eviscerated, breast muscle or thigh muscle percentage. However, there was a decreasing trend in the pH values of the pectoralis major at 24 h postmortem and of the thigh muscle at 45 min postmortem as the level of CMH supplementation increased. No significant difference was observed in cooking loss, shear force value, moisture or crude protein percentages. However, supplementing with CMH increased the slow-twitch red and the fast-twitch white fiber ratio in the gastrocnemius muscles. The results suggested that CMH supplementation has no effect on growth performance or carcass characteristics but it potentially triggered a transition from fast-twitch red muscle fibers to slow-twitch red and fast-twitch white muscle fibers.
W.G. Xia, A.Y. Abdullahi, J.J. Zuo, L. Chen and D.Y. Feng, 2012. Effects of Creatine Monohydrate on Growth Performance, Carcass Characteristics and Meat Quality of Yellow-Feathered Broilers. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 11: 4382-4388.