Carcass composition and meat quality of pasture-raised Mallorquina sheep in Balearic Islands

摘要

Mallorquina, a sheep breed indigenous to Majorca Island (Spain), is adapted to rangeland grazing systems and has made a historical contribution to development of rural areas and maintenance of ecosystems. However, there is dearth of information on theeffect of feeding management system on the carcass composition and meat quality of Iambs. Management data from 10 farms were collected. Five groups of Iambs were differentiated according to feed management and weight: suckling lambs-milk, light lambs-milk, light lambs-pasture, light lambs-concentrate and heavy lambs-concentrate. From each group, 10 lambs were selected randomly and were sacrificed in a slaughterhouse where several carcass measurements were taken: carcass yield, carcass linear measurements and tissue composition. Meat quality attributes such as water holding capacity, cooking loss, Warner-Bratzler shear force and haem pigments were determined. With increased slaughter weight, significant positive differences were observed in yield but other attributes related to quality worsen with the highest carcass weight. Regarding lambs with similar weight and different feed management, significant differences were obtained in weight parameters in lambs fed with concentrate; however, they were worse for carcass yield and some marketing parameters. Lambs raised under traditional grazing systems, which produce commercial medium weight lambs, had the highest quality meat.