Nutritional and bacteriological properties of some game duck carcasses

The aim of this work was to evaluate the body composition, bacteriological quality, proximate composition, amino acids content, total lipids fractiona tion, as well as fatty acids profile in breast and thigh meat (with skin) o f males and females of two species of game ducks namely: Pintail (Anas acut a) and garganey (Anas querquedula). The obtained results are as follows. Th e live weight of pintail and garganey females constituted 59.0 and 86.0% of male's weight in pintail and garganey, respectively. The bacteriological q uality revealed that the mean values of psychrotrophs, enterobacteriaceae, pseudomonas, coliforms, streptococci and Staph. aureus were 4.1, 2.8, 1.7, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.1 log 10 n/g of pintail breast muscle. The corresponding val ues in garganey breast muscle was 3.8, 3.2, 2.0, 3.0, 2.9 and 3.1, respecti vely. In the thigh of pintail and garganey, the results were more or less d ifferent. Neither salmonella nor Clostridium perfringens could be isolated from examined game duck carcasses. Protein content ranged from 19.0 to 23.8 %, fat 4.8 to 23.2%, ash 1.0 to 1.4% and energy value 580 to 1191 kJ/100 g in pintail meat against 20.8 to 23.3% protein, 9.3 to 16.1% fat, 1.3 to 1.4 % ash and 741 to 952 kJ/100 g in garganey meat. Breast meat of pintail reco rded high content of iron (5.12 and 6.19 mg/100 g wet basis) in males and f emales, respectively, against 4.22 and 6.14 mg/100 g in garganey meat. The essential amino acids content ranged from 34.3 to 38.6 g/100 g protein in p intail meat against 36.3 to 38.1 g/100 g protein in garganey meat. The tota l lipids of pintail and garganey were fractionated to seven fractions. The major fatty acids in pintail and garganey lipids were oleic, palmitic and s tearic. Besides, garganey lipids had more unsaturated fatty acids content c ompared with pintail.