Preparation of Dry Homogenates from Whole and Eviscerated Chickens

Abstract

A whole bird can be reduced to a free-flowing, dry, homogenous powder by autoclaving overnight at 205 kPa, homogenizing in a Waring Blendor, freeze-drying, and grinding with a mortar and pestle (Sibbald, unpublished). The technique is less laborious than conventional procedures based on repeated grinding. The report describes an experiment designed to determine if autoclaving causes losses of dry matter, gross energy, nitrogen, and ether extract.Whole birds of three ages plus eviscerated broiler carcasses were ground. One sample of each ground carcass was reduced to a powder by the autoclaving technique. A second sample was freeze-dried and then ground in a Waring Blendor. There were no significant (P>.05 ) differences between paired samples in terms of dry matter, gross energy, nitrogen, or ether extract, indicating that the autoclaving technique is suitable for preparing carcasses for these analyses.