Effects of sex, feed and pre-slaughter routines on technological meat quality in carriers and non-carriers of the RN^- allele

The aim of this project was to study the effects of feeding system (dry or wet feeding with whey), dietary lysine level and pre-slaughter routines on technological meat quality in entire male, female and castrated male pigs, which were carriers or non-carriers of the RN^- allele. The feeding system only affected the yield of processed meat, resulting in lower Napole yield (87.5% vs 89.4%) for meat of whey fed pigs. Further, lower dietary lysine levels resulted in higher drip loss of the meat compared with high dietary levels (5.3% vs 4.8%). Mixing of unfamiliar pigs prior to slaughter led to meat with lower internal reflectance values (28.3 vs 32.2) and glucose + G-6-P concentrations of the meat juice (46.3 vs 49.7 μmol/ml) compared with pen-wise slaughtering. In comparison with non-carriers, RN^- carriers had significantly lower ultimate pH, shear force values and water-holding capacity. Mixing of non-carrier pigs prior to slaughter gave higher Napole yield compared with those handled pen-wise. Females had lower ultimate pH and higher Napole yield compared with entire males.