Performance and carcass quality in three genetic groups of sheep in Brazil

Abstract

-Three different genetic groups were evaluated for growth up to slaughter and carcass quality for kill out, commercial cuts, non-carcass components, as well as carcass morphometric measurements. Pure Santa Ines (SI), ½ Ile de France × ½ Santa Ines (I × SI) and ½ Texel × ½ Santa Ines (T × SI) lambs were weighed weekly until they reached predetermined slaughter weight (30, 35, 40 and 45 kg). In both creep feeding and fattening the animals from crosses were superior to the Santa Ines hair sheep in terms of daily weight gain and weaned in less time. Crossbred animals also showed better performance than purebred Santa Ines in terms of commercial cuts and carcass weights. Correlations showed that fat depth and eye muscle area decreased with an increase in morphometric measures, indicating that larger animals are possibly later developing in terms of carcass finishing compared with smaller animals. The optimal slaughter weight is approximately 35 kg.

Dry matter intake, performance and carcass characteristics of hair sheep reared under different grazing systems

“…The yield average for the hot carcass obtained in the present study was close to that found by Cardoso et al (2013) in Santa Ines sheep (47 %) slaughtered between 30 and 45 kg CW. These results were close to the lower limit of the normal range for this parameter which ranged from 45 to 60 % depending on various factors such as genetics, gender, age, body weight, birth weight, fasting time and diet effect on animals (Petit et al, 1997;Fimbres et al, 2002).…”

“…The results pertaining to the measurements of eye muscle area (Table 6) were close to those observed by Landim et al (2011) and Cardoso et al (2013). Moreover, this muscle has a late maturity, and is the most suitable for representing the development and size of muscle tissue (Rahman, 2007), as the greater the accumulation of fat, the lower the proportion of muscles (Forrest et al, 1975).…”

“…Furthermore, the sheep carcasses recorded an intermediate fatness score (Russo et al, 2003) due to the degree of fat found which ranged between 2.33 and 2.53 which is consistent with the standard range for Santa Ines sheep which present less fat cover than wool sheep as specialized meat breeds that may facilitate the loss of water during cooling process. On the other hand, the other carcass traits, body components and commercial cuts were within normal variations of slaughtered Santa Ines sheep weighing 30 kg (Cardoso et al, 2013).…”

“…However, previous studies state that these losses range from 1 to 7 % depending on the uniformity of fat cover, sex, weight, temperature and relative humidity of the storage room (Lan- dim et al, 2011;Cardoso et al, 2013). Furthermore, the sheep carcasses recorded an intermediate fatness score (Russo et al, 2003) due to the degree of fat found which ranged between 2.33 and 2.53 which is consistent with the standard range for Santa Ines sheep which present less fat cover than wool sheep as specialized meat breeds that may facilitate the loss of water during cooling process.…”

Growth and pre-weaning mortality of Katahdin lamb crosses

“…But a number of reports indicate no differences in weight and daily gain between male and female hair lambs (HinojosaCuéllar et al, 2012;Cardoso et al, 2013).…”