IMPROVEMENT OF MEAT QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF AGED FEMALE GOATS BY ELECTRICAL STIMULATION AND SALT SOLUTIONS

Abstract

The objective of present study was to investigate the effect of electricalstimulation and salt infusion on improvement of some meat qualitycharacteristics of aged female goat. Thirty female goats, age 7-8 years and 40.50kg in weight were managed, fed a like and slaughtered thereafter. The carcasseswere divided into 7 groups and each group were subjected to one of thefollowing treatments : T1 : Control , T2 : electrical stimulation (80 volts , 25 Hzfor 2 min), T3 : electrical stimulation (200 volts , 25 Hz for 2 min) , T4 : sodiumchloride infusion (0.6) , T5 : calcium chloride infusion (0.3 M) , T6 : T2 + T4and T7 : T2 + T5.Results obtained may be summarized as follows: The pH values inLongissimus dorsi (LD), Semimembranosus (SM) and Bicepe Fomoris (BF) inT2 and T3 declined rapidly and the muscles required the shortest period of timeto reach pH 6 in comparison with the other treatments. There were nosignificant differences among the treatments in temperature decline, drip loss,thaw loss and cooking loss. Higher water holding capacity values were obtainedwith LD in T7 (30.47%), SM in T5 (28.10%) and BF in T5 (30.25%) whereas,the lowest values for the three muscles were in T1, LD also surpassed the othertwo muscles in water holding capacity. There were significant differencesamong the treatments in sarcomere length, where BF was superior to othermuscles.It can be concluded from this study that electrical stimulation and infusionof NaCl or CaCl2 improve meat quality characteristics of aged female goatmeat.___________