Physical-mechanic leathers characteristics of crossbred Santa Inês and Texel sheep

This work aimed to evaluate the physical-mechanic characteristics of crossed sheep leathers from hairy tropical crioula ewes mated with Texel wooly breed (TE) and Santa Inês (SI) hair tropical breed rams. Twenty two skin were evaluated from male sheep slaughtered at average of 240 days of age and 21.9 ± 4.4 and 20.9 ± 3.4 body live weight, respectively for TE and SI. After skinning, pelts were weighed, conserved in brine and salted and classified by quality before the chromium-tanned. From the leather obtained in this stage, called wet blue, samples were taken from palette, hind and ventral regions. From each region studied, three samples were taken in two directions for physical-mechanical analysis of tension and tear resistance. A split plot experimental design was used, where the two genetic groups were represented by the plots and a 2 x 3 factorial (two positions and three regions) by the split plots. Results showed that the SI leathers group had better resistance to tensile strength and distention assays than TE group and, in both genetic group, there were not significant differences among the different regions studied on leather. It was concluded that leathers from the crossbreding of Texel sheep wooly ram and crioula hairy ewes showed smaller industry quality than hair tropical Santa Inês breed.

crossbreed; physical-mechanical characteristics; skin; leather quality