Shelf Life and Quality Traits of The Breast Meat of Local Kurdish Roosters Fed a Diet Supplemented with Powdered Sumac Seeds

This study evaluated the impact of adding powdered sumac seed powder (SSP) as an antimicrobial and antioxidant on the microbiological activity, oxidative stability, and breast meat quality characteristics of local Kurdish rooster during postmortem aging. A total of 108 local Kurdish roosters aged 20 weeks were divided into 4 groups (n=27) of three replicates each. The first groups received the basal diets without supplements (control treatment) while the other three had, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0% SSP added to their feed. At 26 weeks the roosters were slaughtered for meat quality measurements. The findings shows that the breast meat of the roosters fed diets with SSP had the lowest values for pH, TBARS, drip loss, cooking loss, total aerobic count, coliform bacteria, and pseudomonas bacteria compared to the control. Additionally, adding 1.0% SSP improved water holding capacity with the highest rate reached at one day of storage. However, the values for all the above parameters increased gradually with higher postmortem refrigerated storage periods. The lightness (L*) and redness (a*) color parameters increased while yellowness (b*) decreased with SSP addition especially at 0.75% SSP. In conclusion, adding SSP to the rooster diets can enhance the physical attributes and reduce oxidative stability and microbial activity during postmortem aging