FATTY ACIDS AND FAT CONTENTS OF WILD AND FARMED PIGEON MEAT

The objective of this study was to investigate the fat content and fatty acids composition of wild and farmed pigeon meat of Pakistan. Folch method is used to extract the fat, and gas chromatography (GC-FID) was used to evaluate fatty acid composition. The wild pigeon’s meat has lower fat contents (13.66 %) as compared to farmed bird (17.00 %) as found out by standard methods. The wild pigeon meat contains higher contents of unsaturated fat as compared to farmed (72.1 and 60.9%). The nutritious essential fatty acids ie., oleic acid (47.4 %) and linoleic acid (2.0 %) are also higher in wild bird meat as compared to farmed birds i.e., 42.4% and 1.0 % respectively. The current studies revealed that the granivorous wild pigeon have higher contents of animal fats when farmed under controlled environment.