On oxidation resistance and meat quality of broilers challenged with lipopolysaccharide

Effects of preslaughter immunological stress induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on antioxidant performance and meat quality of broilers were investigated. Twenty-four broiler chickens (39 days old) with near-mean body weight (BW) were randomly divided into three following treatments: sham injection of saline (control), daily subcutaneous (s.c.) injection of LPS (3 mg/kg or 6 mg/kg of BW, respectively.) for three days. The results showed that average daily feed intake and daily gain of chickens were significantly decreased in the LPS treatment (P 0.05). The LPS treatment significantly decreased the pH at 24 h postmortem in breast muscle (P < 0.05) and significantly increased the water-holding capacity (WHC) of breast muscle (P < 0.01). It was the same as the change of yellowness (b*) at day 3 postmortem and lightness (L*) at day 6 postmortem in breast muscle (P < 0.05), but ha...