Duckling and Chicken Processing Yields and Breast Meat Tenderness

Twenty-eight live Pekin ducklings and 28 broiler chickens were obtained at 49 days of age from commercial processing facilities for each of two trials to determine processing yields and breast meat tenderness. Birds were withdrawn from feed for 8 h and then processed. Breast halves, without skin, were removed from four birds of each species at .25, .5, 1, 2, 4, 6, and 24 h post-mortem. One side of each breast was cooked immediately after deboning (0-h aging) and the other half held 24 h at 4 C before cooking (24-h aging). Tenderness of the cooked breast meat was evaluated by Allo-Kramer shear. Duckling live, dry shell without giblets (WOG), and breast weights were significantly greater (P<.01) than chicken weights (3,410, 2,143, and 319 g versus 2,780, 1,915, and 295 g, respectively). Dry shell WOG, breast, and cooked breast yields were significantly lower for duckling than chicken (62.9, 14.8, and 60.4% versus 68.8, 15.4, and 67.8%, respectively). Allo-Kramer shear values for duckling decreased (P<.01) from .25 to 24 h post-mortem for both the 0-h aged samples (from 13.2 to 9.1 kg shear/g sample) and the 24-h aged samples (from 14.0 to 7.2 kg shear/g sample), and chicken shear values decreased from 19.6 to 4.2 and 19.1 to 4.1 kg shear/g sample, respectively, for the 0-h and 24-h aged samples. There was a significant difference in duckling and chicken processing yields and breast meat tenderness as affected by deboning and aging times.