AN ASSESSMENT OF SIMPLE REFEREE METHODS FOR THE PREDICTION OF LEAN INPIG CARCASSES

A study was carried out in which carcass characteristics of 36 gilts w ere evaluated: 18 originated from the Hungarian 'Hungahyb' cross-breed , another 18, with undefined genetic background, from small private ho usehold plots. Two, rather simple substitute reference methods, called referee methods, were evaluated: measurement of carcass weight withou t skin and subcutaneous fat (meat + bone'), and measurement of carcass weight without skin, subcutaneous fat and bone (boneless meat). Both methods gave a rather close relationship with the Kulmbach reference l ean; however, removal of bone had presumably a beneficial effect on st ability of prediction. The importance of preliminary information in qu antitative form, giving a theoretical background for prediction equati ons, was presented as an example. Simple material balances could be fo rmulated between reference lean and 'meat + bone' or 'boneless meat' c ontent. Such material balances could not be set up with the indirect, rapid surrogate methods using mainly linear measurements (e.g. fat and muscle thickness, etc.) For this reason, as several other publication s demonstrated, these latter methods seem to be more susceptible to bi as than the referee methods. By determining the lipid content of the h omogenised 'boneless meat' component, a 'lean' value adjusted to 3% fa t content could be calculated from data which was compared to the diss ected reference lean standardised also to contain 3% fat. These relati onships, for several reasons discussed in this paper, were not as clos e as expected. So, further studies are needed to reveal these discrepa ncies.