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Carcass characteristics of different breeds of suckling lambs from Spain – a review autores


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Authors: E. Miguélez, J.M. Zumalacárregui, M.T. Osorio, J. Mateo
Issue: 103-1 (14-30)
Topic: Animal Production
Keywords: suckling lamb, ovine livestock, tissue composition, dissection, conformation.
Summary:

In Europe, suckling lamb meat is a highly valued product from the Mediterranean area because of its edible quality. This is due to its sensorial characteristics and to be considered a typical product coming from traditional livestock production systems. Suckling lambs are mainly produced in dairy sheep farms. Several sheep breeds specialised in milk production are used in Spain, they can be autochthonous, non-autochthonous and crossbreed. In the last years, the conformation characteristics, regional and tissue composition of the carcass of suckling lamb of Spanish breeds have been widely studied by several authors. These studies were aimed to describe the product, to propose different carcass classification systems specific for suckling lambs, and to study the effect of several factors such as breed, weight, sex, etc. Reviewing the existing literature, it can be concluded that suckling lamb carcasses have some specific and differentiated characteristics with regard to heavier carcasses. Furthermore, in spite of the low age and light carcass weight of suckling lambs, differences regarding breed, sex or carcass weight have been detectable. However, these eventual differences seemed to be not of great relevance. Finally, fatness measurements are better predictor than conformation for carcass tissue percentages.

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