The effect of muscle, time post-mortem and sex on the quality of meat from fallow deer (Dama dama) farmed in Poland

The quality of three muscles (m. supraspinatus, m. longissimus, m. semimembranosus) was studied in a group of 20 farmed fallow deer bucks and does (Dama dama) aged 31 months. The aim of the research was to analyse the functionality of venison from fallows farmed in the western Poland by comparing selected quality traits of three selected muscles during their maturation in vacuum packaging. A significant influence of the period of maturation was found for most of the analysed meat quality traits. The pH values after 8 and 15 days of maturation in vacuum packaging stabilised in a range from 5.54 to 5.61 indicating high quality meat. The most significant fall of pH was observed between the 4th and the 24th hour post-mortem in all the analysed muscles (P ≤ .01). The redness and chroma, purge in vacuum and the plasticity increased in all the analysed muscles within 15 days of maturation. There was a tendency of an increasing share of dry matter, crude protein and extractable fat, and decreasing W/CP ratio during the chilled storage of venison. Also a significant influence of muscle on the analysed quality traits could be observed. M. supraspinatus characterised with the highest pH, and a*, b* and C* colour coordinates (P ≤ .05). It also characterised the lowest drip loss (P ≤ .01) measured 24 h and 15 days post-mortem, the highest content of total water (P ≤ .01), the lowest percentage of dry matter and crude protein (P ≤ .01) and the highest W/CP ratio. M. longissimus characterised with higher purge loss compared to m. supraspinatus (P ≤ .01) and m. semimembranosus (P ≤ .01), and with the highest plasticity. While the highest percentage of free water and the highest share of free water in total water were observed for m. semimembranosus (P ≤ .01). The results indicate high functionality of meat of fallow deer farmed in Poland, with significant differences between the quality of the analysed muscles, and a need to further explore the effect of time of storage on venison from deer farmed in Poland.