Boosting Heat Stress Tolerance in Turkeys
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
PROBLEM
Muscle development in turkeys changes with short-term heat stress. Current food-processing techniques were not designed for the meat produced in these conditions.
SOLUTION
Exposing eggs to a brief, mild heat shock enables the bird that emerges from the egg to better tolerate heat stress—resulting in higher quality meat.
FUNDING
USDA National Research Institute
USDA NIFA AFRI
RESEARCHERS
Gale Strasburg, PhD, Michigan State University
Sandra G. Velleman, PhD, Ohio State University
Kent M. Reed, PhD, University of Minnesota
William Atchison, PhD, Michigan State University
The perfect deli sandwich starts with optimal living conditions for turkeys everywhere. Temperature stress right before processing turkey directly impacts the quality of turkey meat that consumers expect and enjoy.
If the birds experience a significant stretch of heat just before slaughter, as much as 40 percent of the turkey meat comes out paler, dryer, and cracks more easily after processing. Likewise, hatchlings exposed to prolonged heat or cold during transportation from the hatchery to farms often yield inferior quality meat.
Gale Strasburg, PhD, and several colleagues dug into the problem by examining the metabolic changes that thermal stress produces. They learned that large temperature changes affect the profile of proteins involved in muscle metabolism, which is why the birds cannot adapt to sudden changes in temperature.
Dr. Strasburg and his team are now experimenting with exposing eggs to mild heat increases, which alters muscle growth and development in poults. Once the benefits of this tactic have been quantified, the next step will be to devise a process that implements the findings on an intensive scale.
“If the turkey is dry and stringy on Thanksgiving, we blame it on the cook. Although sometimes that is true, often the problem results from the environmental conditions in the poultry barn.”