Effects of lairage time and electrical stimulation on sheep meat quality

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment which examined the effects of lairage time and electrical stimulation on meat quality and carcass traits in conventionally chilled sheep meat. The 120 Merino wethers used in this experiment were sourced on farm and were transported to the abattoir and held in a paddock 1 week before slaughter. The animals were then placed into 2 different pens (replicas). The sheep were killed at random either at day 1 (n = 60) or day 2 (n = 60). There were 30 animals taken from both pens 1 and 2 each day. Half of these animals were exposed to high voltage stimulation (30 stimulated) and for the other half the high voltage stimulation was turned off (30 control) each day. There was no significant (P>0.05) effect of lairage time on hot carcass weight, GR, initial pH, shear force or cooking loss. However, lairage time had a significant (P<0.05) effect on final pH and the temperature when the pH reached 6.0. Initial pH, final pH (21 h) and temperature at pH 6.0 were significantly different (P<0.05) between stimulated and non-stimulated carcasses, but there was no effect on cook loss or shear force (P>0.05). A significant (P<0.05) interaction between lairage time and stimulation was found for shear force which showed that non-stimulated meat from sheep held in lairage for 2 days was tougher than that from stimulated carcasses.