Productivity of Cinta Senese and Large White x Cinta Senese pigs reared outdoors in woodlands and indoors. 2. Slaughter and carcass traits

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to study slaughter and carcass traits of Cinta Senese pigs, both pure and crossbred with LargeWhite, reared outdoors in woodland and indoors. Sixteen Cinta Senese (CS) and 16 Large White x Cinta Senese (LWxCS)pigs were reared outdoors (OUT) on woodland pastures with some food supplementation; 70 animals (29 CS, 29 LWxCSand 12 LW) were reared indoors (IN), allotted in pens for genetic type and sex. Pigs were slaughtered at about 140 kgof live weight and at an age greater than 8 months. After slaughter, carcass length, thorax depth, number of vertebraeand backfat thickness were measured, and carcasses were dissected into lean, fat and bone cuts. Average daily gain toslaughter differed markedly among the five GTxRS combinations (598; 512; 438; 338; 250 g/d, respectively for LW-IN;LWxCS-IN; CS-IN; LWxCS-OUT; CS-OUT). LWxCS-IN and LWxCS-OUT had respectively the highest and the lowest dressingpercentages (83.3% and 80.1%). A greater compactness of CS carcasses was evident from the length to depth ratio.In both farming systems CS pigs had the thickest backfat, and their differences with the other genetic types increasedproportionally according to a cranio-caudal gradient. Moreover, CS pigs showed lower percentage of lean cuts and a higherpercentage of fat cuts, than the other breeds. In the indoor system an additive effect was evident, with crossbred pigsshowing lean cuts yields (62.8%) of almost intermediate value with respect to the parental breeds (57.7% for CS and69.1% for LW). Some effects of the availability of woodland pastures on growth and carcass composition were alsoobserved, particularly showing CS-OUT pigs’ higher percentage of backfat and kidney fat, and lower percentage of loinand shoulder than the CS-IN ones.

Keywords

• Cinta Senese, Pig, Outdoor, Carcass traits, Carcass composition