3.3. Carcass traits
The 3-way interaction term ‘diet x strain x gender’ did not (P 4 0.05) affect carcass and breast weights but sig- nificantly influenced all the other carcass characteristics. The interaction term ‘diet x strain’ did not affect any of the carcass characteristics. There was a significant diet x gender interaction for carcass (P o 0.01), thigh and drum- stick (P o 0.05), and wing weight (P o 0.05). Gender sig- nificantly affected all carcass characteristics. Chicken strain also significantly (P o 0.05) affected all carcass traits with the exception of breast weight (Table 5). Black Australorp (1016.9 g) and OV (1012.5 g) chickens had higher (P o 0.05) carcass weights compared to PK (963.8 g) strain. Carcass weight of male chickens was higher (P o 0.05) than in female chickens when offered MOLM0, MOLM50, and MOLM100 diets. In PK, males had a higher dressing percentage (67.7%) compared to female chickens (63.4%), while in BA and OV strains, no gender differences (P 4 0.05) were detected. In BA and OV, male chickens had greater thigh and drumstick weight (183.4 g) com- pared to female chickens. No significant (P 4 0.05) differences in thigh and drumstick weight was observed between male and female PK chickens. Male chickens had higher (P 4 0.05) breast weights than females.
In BA and OV, males had greater wing weight compared to female chickens. However, in PK chickens, there was no difference (P 4 0.05) in wing weight between males and females. For female chickens, wing weight was greater in BA (76.3 g) and PK (75.6 g) compared to OV (63.1 g).