Abstract
A study of some quantitative carcass traits of lamb that may be used in estimating carcass cutability is reported. The study is based on data from 337 Choice and Prime carcasses from 90 wether, 112 ram and 135 ewe lambs with average liveweights of 39.2, 42.2 and 39.9 kg., respectively. Multiple regression analyses produced coefficients of determination (R2) which were used to compare the efficiency of various models in predicting carcass cutability. The full model of the 10 traits considered accounted for about 96% of the variation in weight of consumer cuts, about 70% of the variation in percent consumer cuts and about 38% of the variation in carcass value per unit of carcass weight. There was essentially no difference in the predictive accuracy when the independent variables were expressed in actual units of measure or as a percentage of carcass weight. It was concluded that lamb carcass cutability could be most efficiently estimated in terms of weight of consumer cuts from independent variables expressed in actual measure. A total of 1,012 prediction equations which included all possible subsets of the set of 10 carcass traits considered were studied. The full model accounted for 96.5% of the variation in weight of consumer cuts. When both predictive accuracy and ease of measuring the independent variables were considered, the most practical subset of independent variables included chilled carcass weight, body wall thickness and kidney fat weight. This subset was found to be associated with 93.8% of the variation in weight of consumer cuts. Copyright © 1968. American Society of Animal Science . Copyright 1968 by American Society of Animal Science