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Genetic parameters for primal cut meat yield traits in sheep
Jopson NB, McEwan JC, Logan CM, Muir PD
Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 69, pp 215-219, Jun 2009
Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 69, pp 215-219, Jun 2009
Article class: Conference Presentation
Subject Terms: Animal production/wastage, Breed/breeding, Genetics, Meat
Animal Type: Sheep
Publisher: New Zealand Society of Animal ProductionAbstract
Lamb carcass grading is changing from classification on carcass weight and tissue depth (GR) to yield grading systems such as VIAscan®. Under the VIAscan® system, farmers receive information on the percentage lean meat yield from the hindleg, loin and shoulder primal cuts, and payments are based on these measurements. Genetic improvement programmes for meat have concentrated on producing age-adjusted breeding values for carcass lean and fat weight from live weight and ultrasonic eye muscle measurements. This has worked well for grading using carcass weight and GR, but does not quantify differences in yield between meat cuts. Carcass and VIAscan® yield data collected for the Meat and Wool New Zealand Central Progeny Test were analysed to determine heritabilities and genetic and phenotypic correlations for meat yield traits. The dataset contained around 6,600 progeny from 143 terminal sire or dual purpose rams. Data were analysed using linear mixed models in ASReml. The results showed significant variation between sires for lean yield traits. Heritabilities for age-adjusted lean weight in the hindleg, loin and shoulder were 0.40, 0.37 and 0.42, respectively. Genetic correlations for age-adjusted weight of lean by carcass region were all high (range 0.94 to 0.96), but were lower (0.62 to 0.85) when adjusted to constant carcass weight.The whole of the literary matter of the Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production is copyright New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Downloading this article signifies agreement with the terms and conditions of electronic access.
