Effect of intensive and semi-intensive rearing systems on carcass quality and blood biochemical parameters of turkey

An experiment was conducted on turkey to compare the effect of semi intensive and intensive system of rearing on carcass characteristics and blood biochemical parameters. In this experiment, eight week old 48 turkey poults were divided into three replicates per treatment and eight birds in each replicate. The different carcass quality traits and blood parameters were studied after 90 days of experiment. The results showed that turkeys reared in intensive system had significantly (P<0.01) higher mean live weight (4323.33±82.71 g) in comparison to semi-intensive system (3372.50±117.35g). The breast (%) was significantly (P<0.01) high in semi-intensive system of rearing (19.09±0.74) in comparison to intensive system of rearing (14.40±1.72). There was significant difference observed in the length of the small intestine which was found to be longer in case of semi intensive system than the intensive system. Histologically, there was significant difference (P<0.01) found between the length (4.64±0.17 vs. 6.6±0.2) and width (2.52±0.12 vs. 3.44±0.13) of intestinal villi in intensive and semi-intensive system respectively. Organoleptic evaluation of the cooked meat (eight point hedonic scales) of different treatments revealed that the average value for general appearance, flavor, juiciness, texture and overall acceptability were numerically higher in semi-intensive rearing system. Blood biochemical parameters i.e. glucose, total protein, cholesterol, SGOT, SGPT and alkaline phosphatase were similar in both systems of rearing, however glucose values in the semi-intensive system (160.71±2.88) were significantly lower (P<0.05) than the intensive system (177.46±3.75). It can be concluded that the semi-intensive rearing system produced better results in comparison to intensive rearing system.