Abstract
Simple SummarySome authors have reported that the use of body measurements (BMs) could be a useful tool for predicting carcass characteristics in sheep. Hair sheep breeds have been adopted for lamb production in the tropical regions of Latin America. Among these, Pelibuey and Katahdin breeds and their crosses have shown great reproductive capacity and adaptation, contributing to improving the productive efficiency of flocks in tropical production systems. However, few studies have been carried out on this breeds to define its BMs correctly, and little work has been found using BMs to predict the carcass characteristics in different physiological stages.The present study was designed to evaluate the relationship between the body measurements (BMs) and carcass characteristics of hair sheep lambs. Twenty hours before slaughter, the shrunk body weight (SBW) and BMs were recorded. The BMs involved were height at withers (HW), rib depth (RD), body diagonal length (BDL), body length (BL), pelvic girdle length (PGL), rump depth (RuD), rump height (RH), pin-bone width (PBW), hook-bone width (HBW), abdomen width (AW), girth (GC), and abdomen circumference (AC). After slaughter, the carcasses were weighed and chilled for 24 h at 1 °C, and then were split by the dorsal midline. The left-half was dissected into total soft tissues (muscle + fat; TST) and bone (BON), which were weighed separately. The weights of viscera and organs (VIS), internal fat (IF), and offals (OFF—skin, head, feet, tail, and blood) were also recorded. The equations obtained for predicting SBW, HCW, and CCW had an r2 ranging from 0.89 to 0.99, and those for predicting the TST and BON had an r2 ranging from 0.74 to 0.91, demonstrating satisfactory accuracy. Our results indicated that use of BMs could accurately and precisely be used as a useful tool for predicting carcass characteristics of hair sheep lambs.
Highlights
Alternative or indirect methods for the determination of the carcass and body composition of livestock have recently been studied [1,2]
With respect to the carcass weights (HCW and CCW), the hot carcass weight (HCW) ranged from 2.85 kg to 8.56 kg, with a CV around 26% for both parameters
BON weights were 30.5% and 18.4%, respectively, and even greater variation was observed in the internal fat (IF) weight, which had a CV > 64
Summary
Alternative or indirect methods for the determination of the carcass and body composition of livestock have recently been studied [1,2]. Direct methods involve the separation and dissection of an animal’s body and the determination of its physical and chemical components [1,2]. These latter methods are extremely laborious, time-consuming, and costly because of the large number of personnel and laboratory analyses required in addition to being wasteful, as half of the carcass is subsequently discarded [1,2,3,4]
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