Characteristics of broiler chicken breast myopathies (spaghetti meat, woody breast, white striping) in Ontario, Canada

Spaghetti meat (SM), woody breast (WB), and white striping (WS) are myopathies affecting breast muscle of broiler chickens, and are characterized by a loss of myofibers and an increase in fibrous tissue. The conditions develop in intensive broiler chicken production systems, and cause poor meat process-ability and negative customer perception leading to monetary losses. The objectives of the present study were to describe the physical and histological characteristics of breast myopathies from commercial broiler chicken flocks in Ontario, Canada, and to assess the associations between the severity of myopathies with the physical and histological characteristics of the affected breast muscle fillets. Chicken breast fillets (n = 179) were collected over 3 visits from a processing plant and scored macroscopically to assess the severity of myopathies, following an established scoring scheme. For each fillet, the surface area, length, width, thickness, weight, and hardness (compression force) were measured. A subset of 60 fillets was evaluated microscopically. Multinomial logistic regression models were built to evaluate associations between physical parameters and macroscopic scores. The odds of SM co-occurring with severe WB (SM1WB2) were significantly associated with increased fillet thickness (OR = 1.59, 95% CI 1.31–1.94) and weight (OR = 1.06, 95% CI 1.03–1.09). Histologically, myopathies had overlapping lesions consisting of polyphasic myodegeneration, perivascular inflammatory cuffing and accumulation of fibrous tissue and fat. The pairwise correlation between macroscopic and microscopic scores was moderate (rho 0.45, P < 0.001). This is the first study to characterize breast myopathies in Canadian broiler flocks. Results show that the morphologic and microscopic changes of fillets from this cohort are similar to data from other countries, and provide database to benchmark these parameters in future studies. Our standardized categorization can be applied to broiler breast fillets in other regions of the world.