L’incidenza della miopatia del pettorale profondo nel pollo da carne

A research was conducted to determine the incidence of Deep Pectoral Myopathy (DPM) in broiler chickens reared under intensive conditions. The study was carried out in a major Italian processing plant on a total of 128,300 broilers from 164 different flocks during a 6 months period. The evaluation of DPM was performed on P. minor muscles and consisted in a visual assessment of the presence/absence of the myopathy as well as the determination of muscle damage level as being in an “early” (hemorrhagic appearance) or “old” (grey/green discoloration) developing stage. The overall incidence of the myopathy was found to be 0.80% (0.58 and 0.22% in early and old stages, respectively). Moreover, a higher incidence of the myopathy was found in Ross 508 genotype when compared with Cobb 500 (1.20 vs. 0.34%, P<0.01).