Carcass characteristics and technological properties of Musculus Longissimus Lumborum at lambs from the Bulgarian dairy synthetic population and its F1 crosses with meat breeds

Abstract

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of the breed on some of the carcass characteristics and the technological properties of Musculus Longissimus Lumborum in lambs from the Bulgarian Dairy Synthetic Population and its F crosses with Ile de France and Mutton Charollais breeds. The 1 scientific study took place at the Agricultural Institute of Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. Object of the study were lambs from the Bulgarian Dairy Synthetic Population and its crosses with Ile de France and Mutton Charollais breeds. The internal organs weight of the animals from the three groups was measured after their slaughter. In order to determine the meat/bones ratio, the left carcass halves were deboned. The eye muscle area and analyzed samples of Musculus Longissimus Lumborum was determined. The results show a slight variation in the weight of the internal organs of the animals from the three groups. The 2 2 Mutton Charollais crosses come first in terms of eye muscle area (11.34 cm ), followed by the Ile de France crosses (11.21 cm ), and the lambs from the 2 reference group come last with only 8.64 cm (P ≤ 0.001). With regard to the meat/bones ratio, it was found out that in the Ile de France crosses it is the highest (2.90:1), followed by the Mutton Charollais crosses (2.68:1), and the lambs from the reference group (2.43:1) where it is the lowest (P >0.05). Ile de France crosses exhibited statistically significantly higher meat tenderness (P ≤ 0.001) andwater-holding capacity (WHC) (P ≤ 0.01), while Mutton Charollais crosses – considerably higher cooking losses (P ≤ 0.001) than control animals.

Keywords

• meat quality
• technological properties of the meat
• cross lambs
• technological properties of the meat