All round muscles were excised postmortem from 40 native female young and old goat, waterbuffalo, sheep and cattle carcasses. The age break point between young and old animals was 30 months for cattle and waterbuffalo and 12 months for sheep and goat. Five animals of each species and age were slaughtered in accordance with standard commercial methods. All tissue samples were subsequently analyzed for various chemical (moisture, fat, ash, total proteins, salt soluble protein, moisture/total protein ratio, pH) and physical (emulsion stability, viscosity) properties. The emulsifying and extractable emulsifying capacity of the muscle from each species was determined.