The effect of muscling Estimated Breeding Values on sheep meat eating quality

Summary

There was a concern that the increased lean associated with using sires with high YEMD or low YFAT Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) may result in carcasses with reduced eating quality. The concern arose from evidence that the increased lean in progeny from high YEMD and low YFAT sires was achieved in the live animal by decreased rates of protein degradation which may impact negatively on post-mortem muscle proteolysis in the carcass, resulting in tougher meat. It was important to quantify the impact of variation in ASBVs on eating quality. If their use was associated with reduced eating quality then it was important to investigate mechanisms by which post-mortem proteolysis was accelerated and hence ameliorate the negative effects on eating quality. Tenderstretch and electrical stimulation are both known to accelerate proteolysis and were overlaid at treatments in 2 separate experiments.