Influence of open-air rearing on fatty acid composition and sensory properties of rabbit meat

A study was conducted to evaluate the fatty acid (FA) composition and sensory properties of meat from rabbits housed open-air in colony movable cages on pasture during the fattening period. A total of 60 rabbits were reared using conventional husbandry practises and subsequently divided into two groups at a live weight of about 2.0 kg and at 62 days old. The indoor group was kept in conventional bicellular cages (2 animals per cage, 0.07 m2 per rabbit), while the open-air group was reared in movable colony cages (6 animals per cage, 0.17 m2 per rabbit) on a polyphyta natural pasture. The grass was cut prior to move the cages on the pasture in order to avoid the consumption of the grass by the rabbits. Both groups were fed ad libitum a commercial diet for fattening rabbits. The rabbits were slaughtered when 13 weeks old. Fourteen carcasses form each experimental group were randomly collected and hindleg and loin meat were used to determine the intramuscular lipid content and FA composition and sensory attributes, respectively. Rabbits housed open-air in movable cages exhibited lower carcass weight (1110 vs 1243g; P<0.01) and lipid content of the hindleg meat (3.61 vs 5.18%; P<0.01) as well as a higher content of PUFA (36.9 vs 32.5%; P<0.05) and arachidonic acid (5.9 vs 1.9%; P<0.05). However, no differences were found in the n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio. The quantitative descriptive analyses of meat (Longissimus lumborum muscle) sensory properties did not show any differences between the experimental groups.