Slaughtering traits and meat quality of Cinisara cattle native Italian breed

Abstract

The aim of our study was to make an initial contribution to carcass traits and meat quality for typing and product certification, using sixteen male (M) and twelve female (F) Cinisara cattle, a native Italian breed. The animals were sampled in the most representative farms of the Consortium of Cinisara breed. Carcass traits of the Cinisara males showed significantly higher carcass weight and SEUROP scores in comparison to the females, while similar values were observed for fatness scores. As regards meat quality, lightness (M 44.90 vs F 43.25), redness index (M 18.03 vs F 17.86), hue angle (M 21.71 vs F 23.76), cooking losses (M 24.44% vs F 24.98%), tenderness (M 3.36 kg/cm² vs F 3.41 kgf/cm²), protein (M 22.58% vs F 21.84%) and fat (M 1.88% vs F 2.63%) showed no significant differences between males and females. No data are available in the literature for Cinisara cattle; therefore, our results may be considered as an original set of knowledge useful for the salvage of this endangered, local, native breed.

Key Words:

• Cinisara cattle
• Carcass traits
• Meat quality.

Acknowledgments:

part of this work has already been presented and published in the Proceedings of the 63th annual meeting of the Italian Society for Veterinary Sciences held in Udine, Italy, on September 16–18, 2009.

The authors thank the Consorzio di Ricerca Filiera Carni of Messina for providing financial support for the SAS licence.