Evaluation of the Growth Performance and Meat Quality of Different F1 Crosses of Tengchong Snow and Xichou Black Bone Chicken Breeds.

Unlike other chicken breeds, Xichuan Black Bone (XBB) chickens are an established breed in China with excellent production performance and unique characteristics, including black meat, beaks, skin, bones, and legs, and they produce blue-shelled eggs. The Tengchong Snow (TS) chicken breed has relatively lower growth performance than commercial breeds but is considered one of the main genetic treasures of black meat in China. To improve the production and meat quality traits of the TS chickens by hybridization, the current study aimed to investigate the growth performance, carcass indices, meat quality physical properties, and muscle fiber traits of fiber traits of F1 crosses of TS with XBB chickens. Three groups of crossbreeding combinations were produced: (1) XT group (XBB × TS ), (2) TX group (TS × XBB ), and (3) TT group (TS × TS ), with the TT group used as a control. A total of 725 healthy chicks (XT group: 247, TX group: 180, TT group: 298) were reared up to 20 weeks of age to estimate the growth performance and associated meat parameters. The results showed that the XT and TX groups had higher body weight and body size compared with the TT group (p < 0.05). Similarly, breast width, breast length, width of body, and carcass weights were also greater (p < 0.05) in the XT and TX groups compared with the TT group. Meat physical properties, including color, water-holding capacity, and tenderness, were improved (p < 0.05) for the XT and TX group compared to the TT group. The XT group had the better color of the leg muscles with the unique orientation of muscle fibers. Based on the results, the XT group is more in line with the future breeding direction as they have greater body weight, larger size, and lower abdominal fat. This study is a baseline technical reference for the protection, evaluation, and utilization of germplasm resources of Tengchong Snow chicken for screening the best matching lines and combinations with local chickens.