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Measurement of the Cross-Sectional Area of the Loin Eye Muscle in Live Swine by Ultrasonic Reflections¹

Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station³, East Lansing

Abstract

Estimates of the cross sectional picture of the loin in 41 live hogs were made utilizing ultrasonic reflection measurements coupled with angles of incidence at a scheduled series of sites over the last rib. Although some subjective judgment was necessarily involved in completing the "ultrasonic plots", the mean of these estimates of muscle size was not significantly different from the area of the loin eye muscle measured from tracings of the rough loin. The correlation between live estimated area and actual eye muscle area was 0.74. This method of determining muscle size in live swine was time consuming and tedious, thus its usefulness may be restricted for the present to research until further refinement in technique results in sufficient improvement in accuracy for predicting muscle size in breeding stock. Refinement of technique may increase the precision of this tool for measuring leanness in live animals.

¹ Journal Article 2563 Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.

² This paper reports a portion of the research completed by the senior author in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Ph.D. degree, School for Advanced Graduate Studies, Michigan State University.

³ The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the following people: Mr. R. Y. Neiley, Sperry Products, Inc., Danbury, Conn., for furnishing the Sperry Reflectoscope used in this study; Mr. John E. Bobbin, Branson Instruments, Inc., Stamford, Conn., for providing the transducer used in the experiment; Mr. Russell G. Ives of the American Meat Institute for his encouragement.