RESEARCH ON THE MEAT YIELD OF GREY GUINEA FOWL (NUMIDA MELEAGRIS)

D.C. Roşca, M.G. Usturoi

Abstract
    Intensive rearing of Guinea fowl has great development perspectives, due to consumers’ increasing demand the meat and eggs yielded by this species, as well as to their high valuable biological features.
    The goal of the paper was to assess the quantitative meat production, on a biological material group of 50 heads of Guinea fowl, procured from a local breeder. Certain traits were investigated: live weight, fresh and refrigerated carcass weight, dressed yield on fresh and maturated carcass and, finally, the proportion of cut parts in whole carcass formation. These parameters have been assessed in accordance with the recognized poultry science methodology. The data was statistically analyzed using ANOVA (Analysis of variance). By the end of the experiment, the fowl body weight was measured within the 1645.76g – 2250.32g limits. Dressed yield, calculated on refrigerated carcass basis was 5.38% lower than the one calculated right after slaughtering (fresh carcass). Concerning the carcass cut parts proportion, the best results were noticed in the female individuals for breast (28.44%) and thighs (14.09%), while the males provided better developed shanks (12.08%), wings (12.27%), back (27.51%), head (5.12 %) and feet (3.23%).
    Rearing of Guinea fowl could become a reliable business if modern technology and high quality biological material are used together, knowing that the meat yielded by this species is more and more demanded throughout the world.

Key words: Guinea fowl, dressed yield, cut parts