The Effect of Feeding Three Energy Levels upon Dressing Percentages and Cooking Losses of White Rock Broiler-Fryers

THE percentage of edible carcass remaining after dressing, evisceration and cooking is of great concern to poultry producers, processors, and consumers. Recently various levels of animal fat have been added to poultry feeds which has created a question regarding dressing and cooking losses of broilers receiving such diets. Lowe and Vernon (1927) found that excessively fat birds have a very high cooking loss. They also found that broilers had the largest cooking loss, followed by fryers and roasters. Jull and Maw (1923), Mitchel et al. (1926), and McNally and Spicknall (1949) found that relationships exist between dressing loss, age, and sex. Fromm and Margold (1956) found that New Hampshire cockerels which had been treated with 12 mg. pellets of diethylstilbestrol had a higher dressing percentage than untreated birds, however, the treated birds suffered a significantly greater cooking loss. Leong et al. (1955) found an increase in the weight of visceral …