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. 2020 Jul 27;10(8):1276.
doi: 10.3390/ani10081276.

Prediction of Carcass Traits of Hair Sheep Lambs Using Body Measurements

Emmanuel Bautista-Díaz  1 , Jesús Alberto Mezo-Solis  1 , José Herrera-Camacho  2 , Aldenamar Cruz-Hernández  1 , Armando Gomez-Vazquez  1 , Luis Orlindo Tedeschi  3 , Héctor Aarón Lee-Rangel  4 , Einar Vargas-Bello-Pérez  5 , Alfonso Juventino Chay-Canul  1
Affiliations

Prediction of Carcass Traits of Hair Sheep Lambs Using Body Measurements

Emmanuel Bautista-Díaz et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

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.

Keywords: body measurements; carcass traits; linear traits; modelling; prediction.

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Conflict of interest statement

Funding: This research was funded bythe Programa de Fomento a la Investigación through the project ‘Eficiencia energética madre/cría en ovinos de pelo’ (PFI: UJAT-DACA-2015-IA-02).

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Body measurements taken in hair sheep lambs. (1) height at withers, (2) rib depth, (3) body diagonal length, (4) body length, (5) pelvic girdle length, (6) rump depth, (7) rump height, (8) pin bone width, (9) hook bone width, (10) abdomen width, (11) girth circumference, and (12) abdomen circumference. The lamb used as a reference was 56 days of age and 14.2 kg of live weight.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relationship between observed and predicted values of carcass traits in suckling hair lambs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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