Subcutaneous feather tract denervation does not alter feather retention force ante- and postmortem in broilers

Poultry Processing and Meat Quality Research Unit, Richard B. Russell Agricultural Research Center, USDA, Athens, Georgia 30604-5677, USA. jbuhr@ars.usda.gov

To determine whether feather retention force (FRF) in 6-wk-old commercial broilers was influenced by the presence or absence of cutaneous innervation, nerve trunks for the pectoral and sternal feather tracts were severed unilaterally (left side) in Trial 1. In Trial 2, the sternal subcutaneous nerve trunk was severed either unilaterally (left or right side) or bilaterally. Four days postdenervation, FRF was determined bilaterally either antemortem (immediately prior to stunning) or 2 min after stunning and bleeding (postmortem). In Trial 1, the pectoral feather tract ante- and postmortem FRF values did not differ significantly for innervated or denervated tracts. In this trial, the sternal feather tract ante- and postmortem FRF values were 13% higher (44 g) for the denervated (left side) than for the innervated (right side) treatments. Partitioning this difference into the effects of sample side or innervation could not be attained because only the left side was denervated (left-denervation or right-innervated) in Trial 1. In Trial 2, both the left and right sternal feather tracts were represented in equal numbers for the innervated and denervated treatments, and there were no significant differences in FRF related to innervation, left and right side, or ante- and postmortem sample times. The presence or absence of cutaneous nerve innervation does not appear to influence FRF ante- or postmortem. This finding indicates that treatments disabling the central nervous system antemortem may lower FRF indirectly by altering cutaneous metabolism and therefore have been consistently unsuccessful in substantially altering postmortem FRF.