A Comprehensive Study of the Quality of Fat-Tailed Sheep Carcasses in Greece.

ABSTRACT: Sheep farming in Greece is focused on milk production. Meat is considered a by-product and consists mainly light carcasses of undefined quality. The main challenge of the sector is to ensure sustainability, and hence efforts are towards efficient use of available resources, including undervalued carcasses of local fat-tailed sheep. The objective here was twofold: (i) to assess the carcass quality of fat-tailed sheep slaughtered at different live weights and (ii) to compare them with carcasses from thin-tailed sheep. In total, 146 fat-tailed and 97 thin-tailed dairy sheep were used. They belonged to five live-weight categories (LWC), representing 25%, 35%, 50%, 70% and 100% of mature body weight. Carcass length/weight/yield/pH and wither height were recorded. Muscle fiber minimum Feret's di

SUBMITTER: Argyriadou A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9367314 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature