Forty-eight female pigs were used to determine tissue growth curves after slaughter of the animals at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110 and 120 kg and dissection of the carcasses. The lean cuts in carcass were made according to that used by Brazilian pork slaughters. In each cut it were separated muscle, fat, bone and skin amounts. The expanded allometric function was used to estimate and to fit the growth curves. The muscle amounts in carcass increased to 41.9% for animals at 50 kg and to 44.1% for animals at 120 kg. The expanded allometric function fitted the curve to muscle amount with R² = 0.68 and the residual standard deviation RSD = 1.82. The R² value for fat percentage was 0.80% and the (RSD) value was 6.35 with increase of 12.7% to 18.3% between animals at 50 to 120 kg. Concerning to the growth curves for the commercial meat cut yields, the R² value was variable, although with a RSD low. It was concluded that the expanded allometric function is accurate to estimate swine time growth curves calculated in percentage of weight of swine, slaughter between 50 and 120 kg and that fat deposition is proportionally higher than muscle deposition and that muscle and fat deposition, in percentage of carcass, increase from 50 to 120 kg.
expanded allometric function; growth curves; meat cuts; swine
