Meat Quality Studies With Tan-sheep

Tan-sheep is a fine sheep breed of autonomous region of Ningxia because of its meat delicate, delicious in taste, and not the aroma of mutton and fat, and favored deeply by consumers because of its unique local characteristic and national taste. But for a long time, these are only a kind of feeling impression and qualitative description when meat quality of Tan-sheep were evaluated, and lacking the objective science data to describe them. For this reason, two independent experiments were carried on to study meat quality of Tan-sheep. The aim is offering theoretical foundation of objective science to further select and utilize this fine breed. The experimental result of study is as follows:1) Experiment 1: meat quality studies among Tan-sheep(T-sheep), Han-sheep of little tail (H-sheep) and a hybrid(crossed by T-sheep(♂) and H-sheep(♀).TH-sheep) which were raised in the same shed conditions.The contents or marking of growth rate, routine chemical compositions of muscle and meat properties of physics and chemistry, etc. no obvious difference was found among T-sheep, H-sheep and TH-sheep, but for meat / bone, percentage of carcass clean meat and percentage of clean meat, etc. T-sheep are superior to H-sheep and TH-sheep, to a certain extent, this can remedy its deficiency of increasing weight. Intramuscular fat (IMF) and flavor compounds in the muscle, such as methuine(Met), vitamin B₁(V_B1) and deoxidizing sugar, etc. the contents in the muscle of T-sheep are remarkable higher or higher than those in the muscle of H-sheep and TH-sheep, perhaps these are the mainly reason that meat quality of T-sheep raised in the shed always grade better mark. In addition, essential amino acid(EAA), essential fatty acid (EFA), EPA(C20:5) and DHA (C22:6) in thesubcutaneous fat------preventing mankind's cardiovascular diseases and contributing to the braindevelopment, the contents of T-sheep are remarkable or relative higher than those of H-sheep and TH-sheep. It is obvious that meat of shed-T-sheep are not only delicious in taste but also nutritional. But some shortcomings are also significant, two indexes of percentage of water loss of muscle and storage loss are higher than those of H-sheep and TH-sheep. The meat is apt to become dry while storing.2) Experiment 2: Meat quality studying about graze T-sheep(graze-T-sheep) and T-sheep raised in the shed (shed-T-sheep).Total increase weight and average daily gain of graze-T-sheep are higher than those of shed-T-sheep; Contents or marking of routine chemical compositions of muscle and meat properties of physics and chemistry, etc. of graze-T-sheep aren't significant different. Flavor compounds in the muscle, such as vitamin B₁(V_B1) and deoxidizing sugar, the contents of the graze group are higher than those of the shed group, but both of them are not remarkable difference; C18:0(contributing to thearoma of mutton) content of the graze group is higher than that of the shed group in the subcutaneous fat (P<0.05), but the difference is not remarkable in the fat of the muscle (P> 0.05). In a word , the shed-T-sheep not merely make better productive performance, but their meat quality has not been reduced. It is obvious T-sheep meat quality be decided by inherent cause mainly. Specific feed ways in this experiment have a little effect on it.In sum, meat quality of shed-T-sheep is superior to that of H-sheep and TH-sheep, compared with that of the graze-T-sheep, while making better performance of producing, meat quality has not been reduced, and been improved. It is obvious meat quality of T-sheep be decided by inherent cause mainly. Specific feed ways in this experiment have a little effect on it. It is totally feasible for Tan-sheep to be raised in the shed.