Meat centesimal composition of purebred Santa Ines lambs and its crosses with Texel, slaughtered at different weights

The objective of this study was to evaluate the meat centesimal composition of Santa Ines pure breed and Santa Ines vs Texel crossbreed lambs, slaughtered at different body weights. Thirteen males and fourteen females from both breeds were selected. The muscle biceps femoris was used to determine water, crude protein, crude extract and minerals contents. The experiment was arranged randomly, with 16 traits in a 2x2x4 factorial scheme with two genetic groups, two genders (14 males and 13 females in each group) and four slaughter weights (15, 25, 35 e 45 kg of body weight). Data was analyzed by Proc GLM of SAS program. It was observed that the water content decreased as the slaughter weight increased, ranging from 76.09 to 74.3 1 %. The males had higher water content values when compared to the females. The crude protein showed a quadratic behaviour, ranging from 20.27 to 21.36%. As the slaughter weight increased, the value of crude extract content also increased, ranging from 0.95 to 3.78%. The SIxSI animals presented higher ether extract content. In both genetic groups, the males presented lower ether extract content. The minerals content decreased as the slaughter weight increased and the females presented higher values when compared to the males. It was concluded that, as slaughter weight increased, the ether extract content also increased, while water and minerals content decreased and the crude protein content showed a linear decrease. The meat of female lambs presented higher contents of ether extract and less water content when compared to the meat of male lambs. The SIxSI lambs presented higher ether extract content when compared to TxSI lambs.