PSXIII-27 Meat and fat quality of gilts intended for Spanish dry-cured ham: effect of immunocastration and feeding

Abstract

Abstract Currently, gilts intended for Spanish high quality dry-cured ham are characterized by lack of fatness detected at backfat depth covering the ham and also in the intramuscular fat content, necessary for an optimum dry-curing process and for the consumer acceptability, respectively. Trying to solve it, a trial was carried out with 90 Duroc x (Landrace x Large White) females to assess the impact of immunocastration and different diets on meat and fat quality. Half of gilts were entire (EG) and the other half were immunocastrated (IG) by two injections of Vacsincel® at 58 and 76 kg of body weight (BW). Three diets were tested (76–134 kg BW) in both groups: A=control, B=high net energy content and C=low lysine level. A sample of meat from each carcass (n = 15) and 48 samples of subcutaneous fat chosen at random (n = 8) were analyzed. Data were processed as a factorial 2 (sexes) x 3 (diets) using the GLM procedure of SAS. Meat from IG showed lower moisture (P = 0.04) and higher intramuscular fat content (P = 0.01) than that from EG. Fat from IG presented higher proportion of saturated fatty acids (SFA) (P = 0.002) and lower of polyunsaturated (PUFA) (P = 0.02) and PUFA:SFA ratio (P = 0.007) than that from EG, but the n6:n3 ratio was not influenced. About feeding, the only effects observed were that in IG, diet C and B increased the water holding capacity (P < 0.01). It can be concluded that immunocastration improved the chemical composition of meat, but feeding had scarce effects on pork quality. Besides, fat from EG seems healthier but fat from IG would be fitter for technological processes, such as curing. This work (Project AGL2016-78532-R) was funded by MINECO.