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Subjective Evaluations of Cutting Yields and Rib-Eye Area in Live Hogs and Carcasses¹

Agricultural Research Council Statistics Group, School of Agriculture, University of Cambridge, England

A. M. Pearson and W. T. Magee³

Michigan State University, East Lansing

Abstract

Studies of the ability of panels of judges to differentiate between live hogs and their carcasses for economically important characteristics have been made using a paired comparison technique. Judges of live hogs tended to be more consistent in their judgements than did those of carcasses and to achieve a perfect ranking of the seven hogs comprising each batch more nearly, although the carcass judges showed a marked improvement as the experiment progressed.

Both panels of judges found it more difficult to make consistent judgements of the percent yield of untrimmed loin than of rib-eye area or of the yield of trimmed lean cuts. Rankings of live hogs for the yield of untrimmed loin showed very little relation to the actual yield of this cut, and only a slight relation for the carcass judges. Rankings of live hogs and carcasses for rib-eye area and the yield of trimmed lean cuts were both significantly related to these characteristics although, in the case of lean cut yield, the judges' predictions were no better than could have been achieved using backfat measurements.

¹ Journal Article 3062, Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, East Lansing.

² Acknowledgement is made to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek, Michigan, for supporting this research by supplying a fellowship to G. Harrington and for furnishing other financial assistance for carrying out this study.

³ Departments of Food Science and Animal Husbandry.