VALUE OF CONFORMATION AS AN INDICATOR OF MUSCLE CONTENTS AND DEGREE OF MUSCLING OF THE HIND LEG IN LAMBS | ||||
| Journal of Animal and Poultry Production | ||||
| Article 3, Volume 29, Issue 3, March 2004, Page 1103-1110 PDF (136.04 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jappmu.2004.239138 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Authors | ||||
| M. R. Anous,; M. EI-Sayed | ||||
| Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, P.O. Box 68 Hadayek Shoubra, 11241 Cairo, Egypt. | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| A total of 85 male and female lambs of different breeds and commercial crossbreeds, representing animals of good and poor body conformation, were used to study the value of conformation as an indicator of muscle weight of the different suoreqions and degree of musding of the hind leg in sheep. Body conformation was determined objectively by the length of the hind leg of each carcass and degree of muscling of the hind leg was expressed by the ratio between its muscle and bone weights. The values of correlation coefficients indicated that conformation is associated negatively (P<0.001) with both muscle weight of the subregions of the thigh and the degree of musding of the hind leg (r = -0.596). Breed and carcass weight showed highly significant effect (P<0.OO1) on muscle weight of the different subregions and degree of musding of the hind leg. Sex and hind leg length, representing the conformation type, had also highly significant effect on the degree of muscling of the hind leg, however their effect on the hind leg muscle content was less important. Generally, after the adjustment for the differences due to carcass weight and hind leg length, lambs having poor conformation showed higher values for both weights of the subregions musdes of the thigh and degree of muscling of the hind leg. Conformation, expressed by the hind leg length, with the weight of the carcass were found to be good predictors for muscle contents of the hind leg and its degree of muscling (R2 = 0.59-0.86). | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Muscle weight; Body conformation; Degree of muscling; Sheep | ||||
|
Statistics Article View: 38 PDF Download: 136 |
||||
