Meat quality characteristics in Japanese quails fed with Mentha piperita plant

In current study, the effect of different levels of Mentha piperita plant (MPP) on meat quality characteristics in Japanese quail wasinvestigated. 180 quails were carried out in completely randomized design with three levels of MPP (0, 1.5 and 3 percentage). Four replicateswith 15 quails were allocated to each experimental treatment. At the end of experiment, after slaughter and evisceration two birds from eachreplicate of the treatment, the carcasses of the birds were kept in a refrigerator (2-40С) for 24 hours. Meat quality parameters including thebrightness, yellowness and redness of colors, water holding capacity (WHC), acidity (pH), thiobarbituric acid-reacting substances (TBARS)and intramuscular fat (IMF) were performed on breast meat samples. The results showed that yellowness, redness and thiobarbituric acid-reactingsubstances (TBARS) affected by diets containing MPP (p<0.05). There was no significantly difference for the rest of meat quality traitssuch as brightness, WHC, pH and IMF.