Lamb and Goat Carcass Evaluation

Brianna Buseman Author

11/20/2020 Added

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Youth Meats Extension: This video will provides information about how to evaluate lamb and goat carcasses to estimate yield and quality grade.

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[00:00:00.100]My name is Brianna Buseman
[00:00:01.670]and I'm the Youth Meat Extension Educator
[00:00:03.940]here at University of Nebraska.
[00:00:06.350]At UNL, we have a fully functioning meat lab
[00:00:09.050]which provides awesome opportunities
[00:00:11.020]for our students to gain hands-on experience
[00:00:13.460]cutting meat, participating in research
[00:00:16.090]and competing in carcass evaluation contests.
[00:00:19.400]This also provides a great opportunity
[00:00:21.219]to talk about market animals and the meat that they provide.
[00:00:24.930]I'm excited to share with you today
[00:00:26.750]and I hope that you enjoy this presentation.
[00:00:31.840]This lesson will specifically be focused on
[00:00:34.430]evaluating lamb and goat carcasses.
[00:00:38.280]So before we get started too far into talking
[00:00:42.350]about evaluation and the different things that we look at
[00:00:45.250]when we are talking about lamb and goat carcasses,
[00:00:48.550]we first need to just clarify a few terms,
[00:00:52.150]starting with the primals.
[00:00:54.380]So when we first have our whole carcass,
[00:00:57.440]this is specifically from a lamb,
[00:01:00.390]we don't just immediately go from the whole carcass
[00:01:03.520]into cutting it into lamb chops,
[00:01:06.950]there first needs to be a few steps in the fabrication
[00:01:11.010]or the cutting process to get it to a point where
[00:01:13.870]we can cut it into retail cuts.
[00:01:16.290]And so during fabrication or that cutting process
[00:01:20.090]is where we first start by breaking it down into primals.
[00:01:24.310]And so the primals or the big muscle groups that we see
[00:01:28.707]are the shoulder, so on the live animal,
[00:01:32.540]it'd be right where it ties into that neck.
[00:01:35.810]The rack, this is also referred to as the rib.
[00:01:38.840]This is where your rack of lamb is going to come from.
[00:01:42.440]The loin, this is where you'll get
[00:01:44.850]a lot of the lamb chops from, will come from this region.
[00:01:49.270]The leg. The flank.
[00:01:53.130]So this is an important term to remember.
[00:01:55.040]We'll talk about this location later
[00:01:57.510]when we talk about quality grade.
[00:01:59.910]As well as the breast and the shank.
[00:02:02.810]So those are the primals that we start with and from there
[00:02:06.010]it can be broken down further into retail cuts
[00:02:08.840]or the cuts that you would see at the grocery store
[00:02:11.331]or what you would get back home
[00:02:13.180]if you brought a lamb to the local butcher.
[00:02:18.910]So when we're talking about evaluation,
[00:02:21.800]there's a few things that we prioritize,
[00:02:24.860]the first being the percent of
[00:02:27.020]boneless, closely trimmed, retail cuts,
[00:02:30.160]also known as what you'll see on the screen as %BCTRC.
[00:02:36.350]And so this is really evaluating
[00:02:38.970]actually how much edible product
[00:02:41.926]you're gonna be able to get from that carcass.
[00:02:43.810]So remember at this point, following harvest,
[00:02:47.550]the head and the hide and the wool have been removed
[00:02:51.800]as well as the blood and the viscera or the internal organs.
[00:02:56.350]So the weight from that has gone
[00:02:58.170]and we're left with our carcass
[00:03:00.530]and the carcass is made up of fat.
[00:03:02.770]So that's this white covering that you see
[00:03:05.425]over this lamb carcass, that's fat,
[00:03:09.089]it's made of muscle which is then what is converted to meat.
[00:03:13.800]So you can see really on this back leg
[00:03:15.880]some of that purple-ish color that's coming through.
[00:03:18.670]That's from that muscle, this muscle here on the side,
[00:03:22.508]that's also what you see is being converted to that meat.
[00:03:27.030]That's the edible product that we're going to see.
[00:03:29.653]As well as the skeleton or the bones are still
[00:03:32.560]within this carcass adding weight as well.
[00:03:35.110]So to get to our percent of boneless
[00:03:37.400]closely trimmed retail cuts, we need to remove the bone
[00:03:42.060]and remove any excess fat to get to that meat
[00:03:45.410]or that final edible product.
[00:03:47.510]As well as quality grade and quality grade answers
[00:03:51.150]the question of how good,
[00:03:52.560]how good is that product actually going to taste?
[00:03:55.130]Is it going to be palatable,
[00:03:56.670]and palatable means, is it flavorful?
[00:03:59.180]Is it juicy? Is it tender?
[00:04:01.410]How good does that actually taste?
[00:04:05.600]And so, to get started with determining our percent
[00:04:08.420]of boneless closely trimmed retail cuts
[00:04:11.730]there's a few factors that we look at
[00:04:13.692]to determine this value,
[00:04:15.670]to determine how much product we're actually going to get.
[00:04:18.820]The first is hot carcass weight.
[00:04:20.950]So that's basically, as it sounds,
[00:04:23.700]it's the weight of the carcass
[00:04:26.300]and that term hot is that it's coming
[00:04:30.049]immediately following harvest.
[00:04:32.620]And so it's before that carcass has been cooled down
[00:04:35.409]it's coming right off of the harvest floor
[00:04:37.766]and it's still warm.
[00:04:39.620]And so that's where that hot carcass weight term
[00:04:42.590]is coming from, weighing of that entire carcass.
[00:04:47.320]Then we look at the 12th rib fat
[00:04:49.510]and that's what we're seeing in this picture.
[00:04:51.450]The carcass has been ribbed or cut in between
[00:04:54.769]the 12th and the 13th rib to expose the longest miss muscle.
[00:05:00.650]So the longest miss is what's also referred to as the loin
[00:05:04.790]and carries and starts up
[00:05:06.650]by that shoulder and is carried all the way through
[00:05:09.810]to that back end portion of that lamb and goat.
[00:05:14.060]And so it's exposing that longest miss muscle.
[00:05:17.170]And this is really going to be our indicator
[00:05:19.390]of how much muscle is on that entire carcass.
[00:05:22.800]That muscle tells us a lot about what to expect.
[00:05:27.878]So first we determine the 12th rib fat.
[00:05:29.980]That measurement is taken halfway through
[00:05:35.430]that longest miss muscle.
[00:05:37.280]So you can see that black line here shows
[00:05:39.320]where that measurement's taken.
[00:05:41.010]And for every carcass, when we're doing this kind
[00:05:43.470]of evaluation, we measure it on both sides
[00:05:46.790]and take an average.
[00:05:48.470]It's going to be very small,
[00:05:49.840]probably some pretty slight differences,
[00:05:52.610]but it gives you a better view
[00:05:54.580]of what that whole carcass is.
[00:05:57.240]Additionally, we look at body wall thickness,
[00:05:59.580]and so that's this dark line over top of that rib.
[00:06:03.800]You can kind of see when you look at this picture
[00:06:05.969]into that body cavity, those lines that you're seeing are
[00:06:09.750]from the ribs.
[00:06:11.460]So that's what's being exposed there.
[00:06:13.680]And that body wall thickness is fat cover over the ribs.
[00:06:18.490]So think about,
[00:06:19.970]when we're looking at these different things,
[00:06:22.370]of if you either showed
[00:06:24.110]or if you've maybe watched a sibling or a friend
[00:06:26.390]show their lamb or their goat at the County or state fair
[00:06:30.840]and think about how that judge was handling that animal,
[00:06:34.800]what they were feeling for.
[00:06:36.080]What did they talk about on the mic?
[00:06:38.660]First, when they felt that animal,
[00:06:41.050]they probably felt down along the top from the shoulder
[00:06:44.370]to the hind end.
[00:06:46.060]At that point, they're feeling for two things,
[00:06:48.430]they're feeling for muscling.
[00:06:50.670]So they're trying to feel for the shape
[00:06:52.289]of this ribeye or that longest miss muscle,
[00:06:55.890]they're feeling for any shape there
[00:06:59.650]and any, you know, thickness, the shape.
[00:07:02.210]How is it filling up at muscle region?
[00:07:05.380]They were also a feeling for fat.
[00:07:07.570]And so muscle is going to be firmer than fat.
[00:07:11.610]Fat melts at a higher temperature.
[00:07:13.520]It's going to be softer on a live animal.
[00:07:16.550]And so they can really feel differences.
[00:07:19.070]Additionally, the judge probably felt
[00:07:21.900]on the side of the ribs of that animal.
[00:07:25.040]And again, they were feeling for fat.
[00:07:28.010]Bone is a lot harder than fat.
[00:07:31.300]And so if it's a trimmer animal,
[00:07:34.190]you'll really be able to feel the definition of those ribs.
[00:07:37.860]Whereas if it's fatter,
[00:07:39.380]if it has a ton of covering over the body wall,
[00:07:43.180]it's going to be harder to feel that bone,
[00:07:45.784]gonna indicate that there's a lot of excess fat.
[00:07:50.740]The last thing that we look for
[00:07:52.380]when determining the boneless closely trimmed retail cuts
[00:07:55.830]is ribeye area.
[00:07:57.150]So that's actually the distance around the surface area
[00:08:01.080]of that muscle and gives you an indication of the muscling
[00:08:04.250]on the remainder of the carcass.
[00:08:06.990]Once we know those numbers,
[00:08:08.410]so the hot carcass weight, the 12th rib back fat,
[00:08:11.010]the body wall thickness and the ribeye area.
[00:08:13.400]We can plug it into this big, long equation.
[00:08:16.330]We won't go through all of those numbers
[00:08:18.110]or how they got those numbers, but there is a set equation
[00:08:22.390]that will then give us our estimated percent
[00:08:25.740]of boneless closely trimmed retail cuts.
[00:08:28.870]And so you have to keep in mind that this is an estimation.
[00:08:32.480]It's not going to necessarily be a hundred percent accurate.
[00:08:36.420]There can be some differences that you see.
[00:08:39.612]We're not actually taking the final weight
[00:08:42.492]and determining it compared to the hot carcass weight.
[00:08:46.120]This is just supposed to be an estimate.
[00:08:49.210]I should also mention that this is something that we do
[00:08:52.892]maybe in a smaller plant
[00:08:54.970]or if we're doing specifically carcass evaluation.
[00:08:58.730]So say for a judging team or getting some practice like that
[00:09:02.620]in the class.
[00:09:03.740]This is not something that will be done
[00:09:05.530]on a industry wide standard just because
[00:09:08.310]it is not very efficient and takes a lot of time,
[00:09:11.970]as well as can actually devalue that carcass.
[00:09:16.350]They're cutting through a really valuable portion
[00:09:20.060]in that loin in order to try to get these measurements.
[00:09:23.250]So just keep that in mind as we go through this today.
[00:09:26.310]It's an estimation and not necessarily
[00:09:29.750]going to be a hundred percent accurate,
[00:09:31.680]but just gives us a place to go from.
[00:09:36.550]So these pictures just give you a little bit better view
[00:09:39.440]of estimating that body wall thickness.
[00:09:42.030]So actually using a probe to take that measurement
[00:09:44.956]as well as the back fat and the ribeye area.
[00:09:49.420]So to measure the ribeye area,
[00:09:51.210]we use a grid that each dot is counted
[00:09:56.670]and then tallied up to give us
[00:09:59.650]our final ribeye area measurement.
[00:10:02.030]So average for that loin eye that you're going to see
[00:10:05.650]on a lamb is going to be about a two and a half inch.
[00:10:09.320]So really very, very small,
[00:10:11.760]not necessarily a lot of product there.
[00:10:14.500]I should also mention that the pictures
[00:10:16.370]that you are going to see today are from very fat lambs.
[00:10:21.400]You want to see them actually really trim,
[00:10:24.330]as the fat from lamb does not have a great flavor,
[00:10:28.700]especially when you compare it to beef or pork.
[00:10:31.900]Pork fat is something people love.
[00:10:33.680]They like to include it into sausages and ground product.
[00:10:37.130]Lamb fat can develop some off flavors really quickly.
[00:10:40.490]And so we prefer to see it trimmer
[00:10:43.580]And so that way we don't have to have further waste
[00:10:47.500]down the line.
[00:10:48.390]So we want to see a big line eye,
[00:10:51.450]a small amount of fat cover.
[00:10:56.080]So once we determine our percent
[00:10:58.100]of the boneless closely trimmed retail cuts,
[00:11:01.460]or answer that question of how much,
[00:11:04.103]how much product did we actually have,
[00:11:06.357]we can talk about how good that it pays.
[00:11:07.640]And so that's where quality grade comes in.
[00:11:10.280]And again, quality grade is the palatability
[00:11:13.340]or an estimation of flavor, tenderness, juiciness,
[00:11:17.080]how good that meat from that carcass is going to taste.
[00:11:21.070]And so when we're talking about quality grade,
[00:11:23.790]there's three main factors that we evaluate,
[00:11:26.430]and that's coming from maturity.
[00:11:29.900]So the age of that animal, the physiological age,
[00:11:32.810]flank streaking, which is going to show us some of the fat
[00:11:37.240]that's actually within the muscle,
[00:11:39.330]as well as carcass conformation.
[00:11:41.480]And that's what you see in these pictures.
[00:11:43.750]So carcass conformation is the shape of that carcass
[00:11:48.860]and it's going to be determined based on
[00:11:51.700]the amount of muscling and the amount of fat
[00:11:54.150]that that carcass has on it.
[00:11:58.690]Lamb carcasses can be divided into four quality grades.
[00:12:01.836]Prime, choice, good and utility,
[00:12:05.300]however, 95% of the lambs in the US grade prime and choice.
[00:12:10.600]So the majority of the time, if it is from a young lamb,
[00:12:14.640]you will see it in the prime and choice category.
[00:12:18.780]So looking specifically at carcass conformation,
[00:12:21.996]you can really see differences
[00:12:23.810]when you compare prime to good.
[00:12:26.660]So think back, as we talked about to how that judge felt,
[00:12:30.370]handled and talked about these lambs and goats
[00:12:34.535]during the live show.
[00:12:36.780]So probably felt around that back leg.
[00:12:39.550]They were feeling for that muscle shape.
[00:12:41.719]In a prime carcass
[00:12:43.440]you can see there's a lot more shape, a lot more dimension
[00:12:47.140]in that back leg compared to a good carcass,
[00:12:50.890]very, very little shape, very flat.
[00:12:54.500]Additionally, you look over that rib,
[00:12:56.630]a lot more shape in the rib and thickness
[00:12:59.540]that carries out through the shoulder.
[00:13:01.640]It has some more of that hourglass figure shape,
[00:13:05.060]compared to a good carcass, which had very little rib shape,
[00:13:09.970]very, very flat in the shoulder
[00:13:12.070]and really is a pretty good straight line
[00:13:14.440]from that back leg, all the way to the shoulder.
[00:13:17.190]More than likely there's very, very little product or meat
[00:13:21.960]or actual edible product that you would be able to get
[00:13:25.590]from a good carcass.
[00:13:28.140]So prime confirmation really shows a lot more
[00:13:31.770]of that muscle definition as well as
[00:13:35.159]an adequate amount of fat compared to a good.
[00:13:41.850]Then we look at maturity.
[00:13:43.470]So when animals are harvested, they don't go to the plant
[00:13:47.840]with a birth certificate.
[00:13:49.200]We don't know how old they actually are.
[00:13:51.600]And so we have to look at physiological signs of maturity.
[00:13:55.560]And so that's indicators on their carcass
[00:13:58.550]of how old they are.
[00:14:00.150]When you think about people, we show our age
[00:14:02.800]by getting gray hairs or getting wrinkles.
[00:14:08.170]Lambs show their age through bone ossification.
[00:14:12.630]And so when we're looking at their carcasses,
[00:14:15.350]we look for either a break joint or a spool joint.
[00:14:19.740]A break joint is what you see in this top picture,
[00:14:23.360]as well as in this first illustrated picture.
[00:14:28.910]Right there, the bone has not ossified.
[00:14:31.590]It has not joined together.
[00:14:33.380]You're actually able to break that joint.
[00:14:36.960]You're able to snap that front leg off in a young animal.
[00:14:42.610]So if it has both break joints on those front legs,
[00:14:47.840]it's referred to as a lamb or a young animal.
[00:14:51.650]As that animal ages, that bone ossifies.
[00:14:54.660]So you can see here, it's still separated.
[00:14:57.116]That spool part is still at the top.
[00:15:00.280]It's not connected.
[00:15:01.770]In an older animal that has ossified
[00:15:04.750]or it's really joined into one.
[00:15:06.520]It's become one bone.
[00:15:08.860]And the spool joint is the joint
[00:15:11.720]that you'll have to cut around.
[00:15:13.040]And that's what will be exposed.
[00:15:15.070]Can really see some differences in terms of shape and color.
[00:15:19.290]And a young animal is going to have that break joint.
[00:15:23.650]And it's going to be that bright red color.
[00:15:26.010]There's no ossification.
[00:15:27.690]An older animal is going to have the spool joint,
[00:15:30.430]and it will be more of a bright pearly white color.
[00:15:33.627]And that is coming from its age.
[00:15:36.350]So two spool joints is going to be referred to as mutton.
[00:15:40.220]And so that's an older classification of lamb
[00:15:42.919]and is not going to be as valuable
[00:15:46.200]as that young lamb.
[00:15:47.800]Young lamb is going to be expected to taste better,
[00:15:51.700]gonna have better color.
[00:15:53.420]It's going to be more tender compared to mutton
[00:15:56.800]or that older animal's going to be a darker,
[00:15:59.350]less eye appealing color.
[00:16:01.050]It's going to probably have some tenderness issues
[00:16:03.530]as well as some problems with flavor.
[00:16:08.700]And then we look at flank streaking.
[00:16:10.780]So think back to the beginning of this presentation,
[00:16:13.200]when we talked about the primals,
[00:16:15.170]one of them that I pointed out was the flank.
[00:16:17.690]They're really right in front of that back leg.
[00:16:20.320]And then it ties into the belly.
[00:16:22.770]So the flank is this muscle here,
[00:16:25.620]and we're going to look for streaking
[00:16:28.570]or streaks of intramuscular fat
[00:16:31.410]or fat that's actually within that muscle.
[00:16:34.810]So looking at these pictures,
[00:16:37.590]trace amounts of flank streaking.
[00:16:39.880]It's all red.
[00:16:41.200]There's really no signs of any fat
[00:16:44.230]that's actually within that muscle.
[00:16:46.520]If we compare that to a moderate amount of flank streaking,
[00:16:50.350]there's still a lot of red here in the flank,
[00:16:52.670]but we're seeing more of that intramuscular fat
[00:16:55.660]actually moving into that muscle.
[00:16:58.680]That's an indicator that the other cuts
[00:17:01.880]in that lamb carcass will also have intramuscular fat.
[00:17:06.090]This is especially important
[00:17:07.756]when we aren't able to rib that carcass,
[00:17:12.060]when we're not able to cut it.
[00:17:13.510]Like I said before,
[00:17:14.430]that's something that on a plant wide basis,
[00:17:17.377]you're not necessarily able to do.
[00:17:20.010]And even sometimes if say you're participating
[00:17:22.450]in a meat judging contest, they may not always be ribbed.
[00:17:26.270]And so this flank, it's opened up
[00:17:30.430]from when they removed the viscera
[00:17:33.010]or the internal organs during harvest
[00:17:35.620]and that flank muscle is opened up and exposed.
[00:17:38.620]So this is a great place to look
[00:17:40.320]to determine the final quality grade of that carcass.
[00:17:46.260]Using the maturity that we determined
[00:17:49.120]as well as its amount of flank streaking,
[00:17:53.060]we can determine the actual quality grade of that carcass.
[00:17:57.380]So if it came from a young lamb, so it had both break joints
[00:18:00.796]and it had a modest amount of flank streaking,
[00:18:06.010]it would qualify as prime.
[00:18:08.556]If it came from a yearling mutton and had a modest amount,
[00:18:12.550]it would qualify as choice.
[00:18:15.457]So really understanding that maturity as well
[00:18:20.260]as that flank streaking matter
[00:18:22.250]in determining that final quality grade.
[00:18:25.420]Again, 95% fall within that prime and choice category.
[00:18:30.410]So the majority of the lambs that will be harvested
[00:18:33.777]in the US will fall in this category, prime and choice.
[00:18:41.890]So looking at a few examples today, first off,
[00:18:45.640]we have a lamb that had a hot carcass weight of 86 pounds,
[00:18:51.500]had 0.25 inches of back fat.
[00:18:54.350]So that was measured right here.
[00:18:56.917].95 inches for the body wall.
[00:18:59.290]So almost a full inch and a 3.9 inch ribeye area.
[00:19:04.140]It ended up with a 47.8%
[00:19:08.860]boneless closely trimmed retail cuts.
[00:19:11.490]So that means that we would estimate
[00:19:14.060]that of the 86 pound carcass,
[00:19:17.690]47.8% of it is actual product that is edible.
[00:19:22.580]We can sell it, we can bring it to the retail store
[00:19:25.440]and take it home and feed to our families.
[00:19:28.620]So to get that, we did 86 pounds times 47.8%
[00:19:34.894]and it equals about 41.4 pounds of final edible product.
[00:19:42.640]This one had a bit heavier carcass weight at 93 pounds.
[00:19:46.613]0.35 inches of back fat, 1.2 inch body wall.
[00:19:51.100]So this one was really fat
[00:19:52.710]and not just looking over top of that loin,
[00:19:56.970]but you can also see it when we look at the full carcass.
[00:19:59.820]Sure, you see some signs of that muscle popping through,
[00:20:04.330]but you really can see a lot of fat.
[00:20:06.760]There's really a ridge of fat over top
[00:20:10.562]of this sirloin and into that loin region.
[00:20:13.950]Very, very fat lamb, ended up with a 3.4 inch eye,
[00:20:20.760]and 44.6% BCTRC.
[00:20:25.270]This one ended up also at 41.5 pounds of product.
[00:20:29.300]So almost the same as the first one
[00:20:32.500]that we looked at in terms of final end product.
[00:20:37.670]Number three was an 88 pound carcass,
[00:20:40.113]0.3 inches of back fat and a 1.3 inch body wall.
[00:20:44.600]This one was overall, had lighter pounds
[00:20:48.620]in terms of hot carcass weight,
[00:20:50.490]but was really really similar in its measurements
[00:20:52.900]compared to number two.
[00:20:54.430]A 3.4 inch eye, and ended up with a 44.9%
[00:20:59.784]boneless closely trimmed retail cuts,
[00:21:02.540]or only about 39.5 pounds of product.
[00:21:08.120]In our final picture was an 87 pound carcass
[00:21:11.620]with 0.35 inches of back fat, a 1.15 body wall.
[00:21:16.750]So this one you can really see,
[00:21:18.744]really fat over top of that rib.
[00:21:22.820]How many, 4.2 inch eye, so this one,
[00:21:27.341]although it was quite a bit fatter, it also had more muscle.
[00:21:33.420]So this one ended at a 47.2%
[00:21:37.180]boneless closely trimmed retail cuts,
[00:21:39.762]ending at about 41.1 pounds of product
[00:21:43.480]that we would estimate would come from this animal.
[00:21:46.330]So remember, this is not going to be an exact science
[00:21:49.560]or not exact numbers,
[00:21:51.220]but they're an estimation that we can use.
[00:21:54.390]So this shows all four of them together,
[00:21:56.670]and something I really want to point out to you
[00:21:58.904]is that we saw some variation in their BCTRCs, okay?
[00:22:05.090]So ranged from 44.6 to 47.8.
[00:22:10.882]So there was some slight variation there,
[00:22:13.480]but in the end these four only ended
[00:22:17.042]with two pounds different in what we would estimate
[00:22:20.810]that they would have for their final product.
[00:22:23.800]Okay. So lowest was 39 and a half and the highest was 41.5.
[00:22:29.260]So really, really similar, really consistent
[00:22:32.800]even though we saw differences in terms of fat thickness,
[00:22:36.082]body wall and their loin eye size.
[00:22:40.570]They still ended up having similar estimations
[00:22:44.390]in terms of their overall final product.
[00:22:47.860]One thing I also want to point out
[00:22:49.560]is that number two had the heaviest carcass weight.
[00:22:54.250]Now it really was only about seven pounds different
[00:22:58.477]in terms of its carcass weight.
[00:23:01.070]So really not that huge of a difference
[00:23:03.900]when you compare it to number one, which was 86 pounds,
[00:23:07.600]but still, even though they were only about
[00:23:10.230]seven pounds different,
[00:23:11.800]they end up with only a 0.1 pound difference
[00:23:17.170]in terms of their estimation
[00:23:18.640]for what they would have for a final product.
[00:23:21.410]So this one, there was some extra weight put on it,
[00:23:24.310]excess fat that really wasn't needed.
[00:23:28.904]And for that reason, it still ended up
[00:23:31.880]with almost the same amount of product
[00:23:35.030]that we would estimate it would have
[00:23:36.500]compared to one that was trimmer and lighter weight.
[00:23:42.900]So then I'd like to show also differences between
[00:23:46.410]lamb and goat.
[00:23:47.910]So this first picture, this is a lamb carcass.
[00:23:52.150]This is what we've been talking about so far.
[00:23:54.640]You can tell in terms of the shape of its leg,
[00:23:58.170]the width across its top,
[00:23:59.900]as well as the color of the fat,
[00:24:01.650]that looks a little bit different,
[00:24:03.400]just has a little bit different shape to its body.
[00:24:06.910]Whereas our goat hanging next to it was much trimmer.
[00:24:11.620]So it had a lot less fat.
[00:24:13.140]You can see a lot more of that blooming,
[00:24:15.790]almost that purplish color shining through
[00:24:18.320]or coming through that fat
[00:24:20.310]because it was a lot, lot trimmer.
[00:24:22.650]You can really see that across the back and on the leg.
[00:24:25.560]There was a lot more lean product coming through.
[00:24:29.550]This picture again lets you see some differences.
[00:24:32.838]This one, that back leg,
[00:24:34.900]that's that purplish color you're seeing,
[00:24:37.220]that's meat, that's lean product that is poking through
[00:24:41.290]and not being covered by fat.
[00:24:43.960]I also want to point out that even between
[00:24:46.080]the goats that we had here,
[00:24:48.310]there's quite a bit of differences,
[00:24:50.810]a huge difference in terms of weight.
[00:24:54.040]This one I believe is about 59 pounds,
[00:24:56.700]its carcass compared to this one only being about 34 pounds.
[00:25:01.390]So seeing some major differences
[00:25:03.760]and when they are this light of weight,
[00:25:06.180]even if they showed a lot of muscle,
[00:25:08.070]it showed a lot of expression.
[00:25:09.360]It may have been smaller framed.
[00:25:11.760]It's still going to be almost
[00:25:13.210]the same amount of work to actually do the harvest process.
[00:25:17.910]It's gonna still take quite a bit of time
[00:25:20.540]and the effort to do the cutting,
[00:25:22.570]compared to that large carcass,
[00:25:25.900]but you're going to be getting a lot less actual product
[00:25:28.981]from this smaller one.
[00:25:30.810]When comparing the carcasses side by side,
[00:25:33.570]it's a little bit more difficult to see
[00:25:36.350]the actual differences in weight.
[00:25:38.850]Number three here is that carcass that was much smaller
[00:25:42.510]and that's why I included it on the previous slide.
[00:25:45.482]These pictures make that a little bit more difficult to see
[00:25:48.480]but really did want to point out that weight difference.
[00:25:52.430]Now looking across this group,
[00:25:54.160]there is some consistency in terms of final carcass weight,
[00:25:58.410]with one, two, and four being pretty similar
[00:26:02.440]in terms of their final, hot carcass weight.
[00:26:05.980]These weighed 57 pounds for number one,
[00:26:09.630]51 pounds for number two,
[00:26:11.620]the lighter weighted one at number three at 34 pounds,
[00:26:15.310]and then 59 pounds for number four.
[00:26:18.860]With these carcasses when we compare them to the lambs,
[00:26:21.750]you can see that we did not rib them.
[00:26:24.170]So we did not take actual fat measurements
[00:26:27.070]or loin measurements.
[00:26:29.320]And so because of that,
[00:26:32.080]we just took an estimated yield of 43%
[00:26:35.610]to give us an estimation
[00:26:37.730]for what their final pounds of product would look like.
[00:26:42.280]So keeping that across the board
[00:26:45.020]left us with 24.5 pounds of product for number one,
[00:26:49.990]21.9 pounds for number two,
[00:26:53.220]only 14.6 pounds of product for number three,
[00:26:57.270]and 25.4 pounds for number four.
[00:27:00.750]So as I said previously, a lot of that fixed cost
[00:27:04.940]in order to harvest these animals is going to stay the same.
[00:27:08.710]Having labor there to do the harvest and the fabrication,
[00:27:12.920]the amount of time that it's going to take to clean up.
[00:27:15.550]That's a big part of it that we don't talk about either,
[00:27:18.744]but all of those costs are going to be pretty similar
[00:27:21.780]regardless of what you actually get for your final product.
[00:27:25.360]So although this one,
[00:27:28.040]it was a smaller framed animal to start with.
[00:27:31.130]We would expect it to have less pounds of product.
[00:27:34.360]It's going to be harder to recoup that cost
[00:27:37.440]if you were consistently harvesting these smaller animals.
[00:27:42.060]So a few other things that we can point out
[00:27:44.400]when talking about these carcasses
[00:27:46.710]is variations in terms of their fat and their muscling.
[00:27:51.120]So it's a little bit more difficult to see on these
[00:27:54.540]compared to what the lambs looked like.
[00:27:56.980]However, you can notice that on these goat carcasses,
[00:28:00.250]you see a little bit more of that bluing,
[00:28:03.098]so that blue color that's coming through the fat
[00:28:05.360]or up here on the legs looks to be a little bit purple,
[00:28:08.600]that's that lean tissue or that meat
[00:28:11.030]that's actually showing through the fat cover.
[00:28:14.140]And so on number one and two,
[00:28:16.230]you can see quite a bit of that bluing coming through
[00:28:18.990]on the loin.
[00:28:20.250]Compare that to number four,
[00:28:22.440]you see a little bit less of that color showing through.
[00:28:25.250]And we would anticipate that if we were to rib these
[00:28:28.150]and take measurements, that four would probably have
[00:28:31.650]more back fat across that loin,
[00:28:34.001]just due to those visual indicators.
[00:28:37.770]Again, tying back to the live side during the show,
[00:28:41.190]how the judge felt along their back from their shoulder
[00:28:45.010]onto the end of that loin and probably around that leg,
[00:28:48.720]we're feeling for some differences in terms of muscle.
[00:28:52.590]And so on the carcass we can evaluate that
[00:28:56.677]looking at width in that shoulder,
[00:28:57.900]in the really the shape of that muscle
[00:29:01.080]and the muscle expression,
[00:29:02.550]as well as really looking in that back leg.
[00:29:06.250]Number four shows a little bit more shape.
[00:29:09.110]There's a lot of shape here in that back leg.
[00:29:11.776]It isn't flat at all.
[00:29:13.590]Flat is usually equivalent to not as much muscle definition,
[00:29:17.974]not as much shape as we would like to see.
[00:29:21.250]So just those couple things to point out,
[00:29:25.150]when looking at these four carcasses,
[00:29:27.290]although we didn't rib them and actually see measurements
[00:29:29.856]we can still see a few different indicators
[00:29:32.840]in terms of muscle and fat differences
[00:29:35.400]and overall weight of their product,
[00:29:37.536]differences between these four carcasses.
[00:29:42.880]With that, I want to thank you
[00:29:43.940]for taking the time today to listen to this presentation.
[00:29:47.010]I hope that it helped make some connections
[00:29:48.840]between market animals and the meat they provide.
[00:29:51.520]If you have any questions about today's presentation,
[00:29:54.540]please feel free to reach out using the contact information
[00:29:57.760]provided on the slide.

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Meat
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Lamb and Goat Carcass Evaluation

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