This experiment was developed at the Ovine Section of Animal Science Department, at Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil- The purpose of this experiment was to determine the quantity of bone, muscle and fat of the carcass, and the growth ofbone and muscle of the carcass, and of the carcass cuts. Twenty-two intact mate lambs, sired by Texel males, from crossbreed Texel -Ideal dams were used. Four lambs were siaughtered at the beginning of the experiment (24 hours after birth) and groups of six lambs were siaughtered at weaning and when reaching 28 and 33kg. The lambs were kept in individual stalls together with their respective mothers until weaning (45 days of age). To study the growth of the carcass tissues and carcass cuts (hindquarter, shoulder, rib, backbone, neck), regression equations of the log of weight of each tissue, as a function of the log of empty body weight (EBW) or cold carcass weight (CCW) were fitted. The quantities of bone and muscle -increased (P<0.05) with the higher of siaughter weights. The proportion of bone decreased (P<0.05) and that of muscle remained constant (P>0.05) with the higher of the CCW, the proportion of fat increased from birth to weaning (P<0.05) and decreased after weaning (P<0.05). In relation to EBW and CCW, bones were early maturing (b=0.729188 and b=0.673340), followed by muscular tissue (b=1.075728 and b=1.001403). Among carcass cuts rib bone and muscle were later maturing than in other cuts.
allometry; carcass constituents; carcass tissues; meat production; sheep
