Estimation of Carcass Tissue Composition from Carcass Joint in Male Lambs

Abstract

This study was carried out to estimate the tissue compositions of half-carcasses of male lambs by using carcass joints. The study's live material consisted of 45 male lambs from Akkaraman, Karayaka, and Herik breeds. After weaning, the male lambs were fed with lamb concentrate feed  and alfalfa. They were then transferred to slaughter when they reached 40 kg live weight. The left half-carcasses of all lambs were divided into seven joints: neck, anterior rib, rib, loin, leg, flank, and foreleg, in order to determine the tissue composition of carcass joints and half-carcasses. All carcass joints were dissected into muscle, subcutaneous fat, intermuscular fat, bone tissue and other remaining tissues. The study found that the percentage of muscle was higher in the leg (61.33%), while the percentage of fat was higher in the flank (36.03%). The percentage of bone was similar in all joints except the flank. It was also found that the variation in adipose tissue was higher than the variation in other tissues in all carcass joints.High phenotypic correlation coefficients were determined between the tissue composition of carcass joints and half-carcass tissue composition. In addition, the regression coefficients determined for all carcass joints were statistically significant in the prediction of half-carcass tissue composition. The significant phenotypic correlation and regression coefficients indicate that the tissue composition of carcass joints and half-carcass are related. Although the regression coefficients calculated for the estimating of total muscle and bone weight in the half carcass were found to be statistically significant, the coefficients for joints other than the leg and foreleg were low. The regression coefficients for total fat were high except for the anterior rib. The study revealed that the tissues in the leg were more important in predicting the weight of muscle and bone in the half-carcass, and the adipose tissue in the loin was more determinant in predicting the weight of fat than the other joints. In addition, the results of this study indicate that utilizing only a single carcass joint is not effective in the estimating of carcass tissue composition.