The effect of sex and age at slaughter on some carcass and meat quality traits of Boer kids

Abstract

This study investigated some carcass and meat quality traits of Boer kids (17 male and 17 female) at two different average slaughter ages (83 and 139 days). Jointed cuts of half carcasses arranged from the greatest to the smallest were: hind leg (28.5%), rib and flank (21.2%), shoulder (19.3%), back (8.5%), loin (7.9%), neck (7.6%) and chuck (3.4%). Male kids had significantly higher percentage of the neck cuts (p≤0.001) while females had significantly higher percentage of rib and flank cuts (p≤0.05). At higher slaughter ages neck (p≤0.05) and chuck (p≤0.001) percentages significantly decreased and rib and flank (p≤0.001) percentage significantly increased. On average, hind leg had 72.2 % of muscle, 8.6 % of fat and 18.8 % of bone. Female kids had higher muscle and lower bone hind leg content than males (p≤0.01). Hind leg bone content significantly decreased at higher slaughter age (p≤0.01). Meat from male kids displayed significantly higher cie L*(p≤0.001) and b*(p≤0.05) values than females. At higher slaughter age L* values significantly decreased (p≤0.01) while a* and b* values significantly increased (p≤0.001; p≤0.01)

Carcass and meat quality traits of Saanen goat kids reared under natural and artificial systems and slaughtered at different ages

“…Supporting these results, several authors (Argüello et al 2007;Peña et al 2007;Bonvillani et al 2010) reported an increase in empty body weight and hot carcass weight with the increasing slaughter age/slaughter weight. Commercial and real dressing percentages did not change with the increasing slaughter weight in the current study as previously reported by Peña et al (2007), Kaić et al (2012), and Panea et al (2012). In contrast, Argüello et al (2007) found a higher dressing percentage in heavier kids than in lighter kids and explained this difference by a lower proportion of liver and head in the heavier kids.…”

“…There were significant increases in the linear carcass measurements and conformation scores with increasing slaughter age in the current study except for the leg length and buttock width. Similarly, increases in carcass measurements with slaughter weight/ slaughter age were reported by Panea et al (2012) for seven different Spanish goat breeds and by Kaić et al (2012) for Boer goat kids. Moreover, increases in conformation score with slaughter weight were also reported by Bonvillani et al (2010) for Criollo Cordobés goat kids and by Peña et al (2007) for Florida goat kids.…”

“…The effects of breed (Dhanda et al 1999a;Ekiz et al 2010), slaughter age/weight (Marichal et al 2003;Peña et al 2009;Ding et al 2010), sex (Bonvillani et al 2010;Kaić et al 2012) and management system (Dhanda et al 1999b) on goat carcass and meat quality have been widely studied. However, several studies have addressed the effect of the rearing type on the kids' meat quality (Argüello et al 2005;Panea et al 2012).…”

Predicting the Digestive Tract Development and Growth Performance of Goat Kids Using Sigmoidal Models

“…However, the Pearson correlation was not significant between the dressing percentage and animal weight or age. Supporting these results, several authors showed no differences in dressing percentages of kid goats slaughtered at different live weight [50][51][52][53]. However, other studies showed a positive relationship between dressing percentage and age in goat kids [34,54] and lambs [55].…”

“…In addition, the body size indices had positive correlation with the slaughter age and weight. The slaughter age progression boosted the carcass length, hind leg width, and shoulder in boar kids [ 50 ].…”