PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RIB-EYE MUSCLE OF A W ASI EWES SLA UGTERED AT DIFFERENT AGES

Taha, Sadik.; H. AL-Qudsi, Natik; B. Mahmmod, Ayad

	PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RIB-EYE MUSCLE OF A W ASI EWES SLA UGTERED AT DIFFERENT AGES
The Iraqi Journal of Agricultural Science
Article 1, Volume 39, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 112-119
Authors
Sadik. Taha; Natik H. AL-Qudsi; Ayad B. Mahmmod
Abstract
This experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of age on the meat chemical and physical characteristics of Awassi ewes in different ages. Fifty/,ure Awasi ewes ranging from 1 to 10 years of age were fed concentrate mixture at level 1 % 0 their live body weight plus green roughages. All the ewes were born and grown up at the sheep research station, Ministry of Agriculture, The animals were slaughtered twelve hours after the food was prevented. All the carcasses were chilled at 2 °C for 24 hours, followed by the dissecting of longissimus dorssi muscle (LD) at the loin .The carcasses were cut into identical two halves and the yield half of the (bD) was subjected the chemical and physical analysis. The results showed a significant effect of animals ages on the moisture percentage of the (LD) , where it was ranged from 72 to 75 % of animals aged from 1 to 9 years old, also a significant effect was observed on the moisture percentage of ewes of 10 years old in comparison WIth other animals .A fat percentage ranged from 3.11 to 4.58% for the ewes of 2 to 9 years of age, while the lowest fat percentage was found with ewes of one year old and the highest 8.23% as achieved with ewes 10 years old. Protein percentage was ranged frorn 119 to 21.4% in the groups of seven years of age. Results revealed that there was significant decreasein the percentage of meat capacity for water holding• (WHC) being 54.34 to 47.05%. However, there was significant decrease in the percentage of cooking loss which was 41.51 to 38.27% as regarded back muscle for ewe at the age of one year and ten years, respectively. The study showed a positive correlation between myoglobin concentration and the advanced in age , where the concentrations were 13.6,35.0,43.7 , 51.1 ,55.3 ,71.3,83.6,90.6, 102.1 and 127.9 ppm, respectively .It can be concluded that the meat of slaughtered ewes with older ages were not different from those of younger ewes in their palatability and nutritional value.

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