Closer watch on lamb fatness

Press, 15 October 1976, Page 15

Closer watch on lamb fatness

In the export lamb killing season, which is about to begin, graders are likely to be less lenient with lambs which tend to carry too much fat.

According to a Meat Board source, where necessary there will be a more rigid adherence to existing standards, which lay down when a lamb should be graded overfat or F grade. At present a lamb should be graded F when the fat cover about the twelfth rib is greater than I.6cm. Writing in the board’s journal, the “Meat Producer,” recently Mr A. E. Frazer, who is assistant to the general manager, said that the present basis for assessing fat cover on export lamb carcases was by eye appraisal, but carcases considered to be borderline between the F (overfat) and P and O grades (medium fat cover) were probed with a knife at a point in the vicinity of the twelfth rib. This gave a measurement of the fat and muscle tissue from the surface of the rib to the external surface of the carcase. The guideline for segregating carcases into the F grade was now I.6cm and the grader's probe was marked at this depth. This measurement was

used because it had been found to be the most practical indicator of fatness when a carcase was being assessed as a whole carcase and in a hot state, Mr Frazer said.

There have been predictions of a further tightening in these standards in the future to comply more closely with discerning overseas customers’ requirements, but it is understood that the board is likely to give producers at least a season’s notice before making any change. It is not expected that the more rigid adherence to existing standards in the season about to begin will necessarily, result in more lambs being put into the overfat grade. In fact, with a much greater awareness of the overfat problem now on the part of farmers, it is hoped that there may be less. Seasonal conditions, of course, have a part to play in the incidence. Recently we published a suggestion from a meat industry source that where producers had an overfat problem they might consider weaning their lambs early. Still another suggestion heard in the last few days is that farmers might contemplate weaning lambs, which tend to be overfat, about a week before they propose drafting to allow them to harden up and get rid of their milk fat.