The effect of sex and terminal sire line on carcass characteristics of pork belly

Abstract. The objective of study was to evaluate the effect of sex and terminal sire line on pork belly composition of commercially produced pigs. The animals were progeny of White Meaty sows and three terminal sire lines: HA × PN, LA and YO × PN. Barrows: gilts ratio was 97:102. Pigs were slaughtered at average carcass weight 85.73–89.0 kg according to genotype. Day after slaughter, the dissection of right half sides was done. After that, the detailed dissection of trimmed belly to individual tissues (bones, meat, fat and skin) was performed. The effect of sex on belly characteristics was significant. Gilts had higher meat proportion in belly than barrows (51.41 vs. 47.21 %), which reached higher content of subcutaneous and intermuscular fat (43.92 vs. 38.83 %). The influence of terminal sire line was also significant. All differences were found between HaxPN genotype and other two terminal sire lines. Progeny of Ha × PN sire line had the highest percentage of meat in belly (51.28 %) while progeny of YO × PN had the highest content of fat and skin (42.79 %) and bones in belly (9.48 %).