Serum metabolites and carcass characteristics of Noiler chicken as affected by age and sex

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of sex and age on serum metabolites and carcass characteristics of Noiler chickens. A total of sixty (60) Noiler chickens were used to study the effect of sex and age on serum metabolites and carcass quality characteristics. Each group was replicated thrice (10 birds per replicate) in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). The serum metabolites that were observed include total protein, albumin cobalt binding, globulin, albumin-globulin ratio (AG), aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphate, alanine aminotransferase, chloride (CHLOR.) and creatinine while carcass characteristics observed include live weight, killed weight, defeathered weight, dressed weight, some internal organs, cut parts and dressed weight percentage. This study unveiled that sex had no noticeable effect on the entire carcass characteristics of noiler chicken at the three ages under consideration (p>0.05) except head (male: 33.05^a and female: 25.05^b) at the 6^th week and large intestine at week 8 (male:18.27^a and female:13.40^b) where there were significant differences (p<0.05). It was also observed that sex had no effect on all the parameters in serum metabolites at all the ages under consideration except in Albumin-globulin ratio and chloride ion at the 8^th week, which were significantly affected (p>0.05). In conclusion, age appeared to be a more prominent factor in influencing these parameters, with some parameters showing significant differences at some specific developmental stages, and as the birds advance in age, a progressive increase was observed in carcass characteristics of the noiler chicken for both sexes.