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Reducing Poultry Crop Breaks
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Two
ARS scientists are helping to reduce the
chances that poultry will become contaminated by pathogenic (disease-causing)
bacteria during processing. Physiologist R. Jeff Buhr and agricultural engineer
J. Andra Dickens of the Richard B. Russell Research Center in Athens, Georgia,
are currently conducting research to reduce crop breakage and the pathogens
associated with it.
One significant source of contamination during processing has been the rupture
of the bird's crop—a pouch in the neck that stores undigested feed. Crops
are known to harbor pathogens like Salmonella. The crop is always
removed during processing, but it breaks about 25 percent of the time, spilling
its contents into and on the chicken.
Buhr and Dickens found two related factors that have bearing on whether crops
rupture: the direction in which the crop is removed and the age of the bird at
the time of processing. Both factors determine the amount of pressure needed to
extract the crop.
For 4-week-old broilers, the researchers found it took 2.72 kg of pulling
pressure to remove the crop, whereas at 8 weeks of age, 4.27 kg of pressure was
required—a 157-percent increase.
The standard method of pulling the crop from the carcass through the thoracic
(chest) cavity also requires greater pulling pressure. Buhr and Dickens found
that taking the crop out through the neck resulted in 95 percent of the crops
being removed intact. In contrast, only 64 percent of the crops removed through
the thoracic cavity exited without rupturing.
Buhr and Dickens say it is too early to recommend changes to the processing
industry because their laboratory conditions may not carry through to a
commercial setting. In the laboratory, the crop extractions were done manually
and not in the automated fashion of poultry processors.
But with a 95 percent intact rate when crops were extracted through the neck,
this alternative method should be given consideration in automated commercial
evisceration systems, according to Buhr.—By
Sharon
Durham, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
R. Jeff Buhr and
J. Andra Dickens are at the
USDA-ARS Richard B.
Russell Agricultural Research Center, Poultry Processing and Meat Quality
Research Unit, 950 College Station Rd., Athens, GA 30604-5677; phone (706)
546-3339, fax (706) 546-3633. |
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"Reducing Poultry Crop Breaks" was
published in the May
2001 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
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Last Modified: 01/07/2002
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