Housing system and gender effect on carcass and meat quality characteristics in Turkish Pekin ducks

Improving meat quality is one of the most important aims for scientists and breeders. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of housing system (indoor vs. free-range) and gender on carcass and meat quality traits in Pekin ducks. The animal material consisted of 20 male and 20 female birds in each housing system. Our results show cold carcass weights of 3174.10 ± 80.65 g and 2672.60 ± 59.63 g for male and female birds in the indoor housing system and 2821.10 ± 50.53 g and 2306.90 ± 43.32 g for male and female birds in the free-range housing system. The gender and housing system interaction effect was statistically significant (p < 0.05) only for the chroma value in the pectoralis major (PM) muscle. There was no housing system or gender effect on the other traits (p > 0.05). The PM muscle showed greater within-group variance than the gastrocnemius muscle. The canonical correlation analysis showed that relationships among meat quality parameter clusters can serve as a trait for breeding strategies in Pekin ducks.