Meat quality characteristics of Turkish indigenous Hair goat kids reared under traditional extensive production system: effects of slaughter age and gender

Meat quality characteristics of Turkish indigenous Hair goat kids reared under an extensive production system were investigated in this study. A total of 60 Hair goat kids (30 females and 30 males) were slaughtered at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months of ages. Slaughter age significantly affected meat quality characteristics. Cooking loss (P?<?0.01) and shear force value (P?<?0.001) increased with age. Meat color became darker red with increasing slaughter age (P?<?0.001). The percentage of fat of musculus (M.) semimembranosus increased with age (P?<?0.01). The percentage of saturated fatty acids was significantly higher (P?<?0.01), whereas the percentage of unsaturated fatty acids was lower (P?<?0.001) in the M. longissimus dorsi of the kids slaughtered at 3 months of age than those in the other age groups. The females had higher intramuscular fat than that in males (P?<?0.001) and meat from male kids contained a higher percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acid than that from females (P?<?0.01). In conclusion, meat from Hair kids slaughtered between 3 and 9 months of ages had better quality than those slaughtered at the other ages and also meat from male kids had better quality than those female kids slaughtered at the same age under extensive production system.