Published in Scientific Papers. Series D. Animal Science, Vol. LXV, Issue 2
Written by Constantin PASCAL, Costică CRISTIAN
The research aim was to assess the possibility of increasing the quality of carcasses provided by young sheep undergoing fattening. In this sense, the biological material used was represented by industrial half-breeds from several forms of crossbreeding between Romanian sheep breeds and meat rams’ breeds. The maternal form that was the basis on suppling biological material subject to fattening was represented by F1 crossbred females resulting from the crossing of Blue faced Leicester (BL) rams with local Merino of Palas (MP) and Țigaie (TI) females. In obtaining fattened lambs, Suffolk (S) rams were used as a terminal breed. In order to meet the objectives, set by the experimental protocol, research batches were organized that benefited from the same experimental treatment. Control sacrifices were performed to determine the carcass quality at the end of fattening. The assessments made indicate that in the case of two control groups, made up of individuals belonging to the local Merino and Ţigaie breeds, no situations were reported in which the exterior of the carcasses met the requirements for classification in the S.E.U. The assessment of the degree of development of the muscles on the upper line indicates clear differences between groups. In the case of determining the area of the muscle eye in carcasses obtained by slaughtering lambs from batches S x (BL x MP) shows that the average value is approximately 3 cm2 higher than the control batch, and in batch S x (BL x TI) the difference expressed in absolute values is + 3.43 cm2.
[Read full article] [Citation]
