Lambex trial entrants gain insight into future carcase feedback

Last year 1500 2023 drop lambs from SA, Vic and WA were fed at Thornby feedlot at Sanderston for 60 days before being processed at Thomas Foods International's Stawell abattoir in February where the lambs were hook tracked through the plant.

A hot standard weight was recorded for each lamb carcase along with lean meat yield measured with the DEXA technology and intramuscular fat from the MEQ Probe.

Using these carcase trait inputs, eating quality predictions have been generated using the Meat Standards Australia sheepmeat cuts based grading model which includes an MSA Sheepmeat Index for each lamb.

This index is calculated similar to beef- a weighted average of the eating quality of the cuts across the carcase for the most common cooking method which in this case is roast or grill.

LambEx chair Jason Schulz says the competition for groups of 50 lambs has allowed DEXA and the MEQ probe to be tested under commercial chain speed.

"Recording individual carcase traits against the lambs using eID has demonstrated MSA grading in lamb is possible, but not without its challenges," Mr Schulz said.

He said all the competition results, including the most profitable team will be revealed at LambEx in Adelaide from August 7-9.

"What I can say is that there is as much variation in carcase traits within a breed as there is comparing the different breeds, meaning there's great opportunity for improvement through genetic selection based on information provided through MSA feedback, once commercially available," he said.

MSA program manager David Packer says it has been a great chance to showcase MSA for sheep meat.

He says they have been working closely with the majority of medium to large supply chains to work through system and technology requirements as well demonstrate the value of underpinning brands with the MSA cuts-based model to provide consistent eating quality to their customers.

"A number of supply chains are getting close to having capability, and hopefully once commercialised, producers will have incentives to progress their returns as brands will be capturing more value," he said.

In the early development stages of progressing the MSA cuts based grading model many believed 'lamb was lamb' and the variation was minimal but ongoing research and commercial testing has found consumers can easily detect quality differences.

"We aren't seeing quite as much variation in eating quality in lamb as we have seen in beef, though as we expand the model to categories beyond lamb and have further commercial data and traits, we may see an even wider distribution," he said.

"What we have seen is about 20 points difference out of 100 in the eating scores of the loins of the competition lambs alone.

"The brand owners will ultimately decide on how they use and see value in the MSA cuts based model, though many are looking at extracting value from higher quality product, or setting a minimum specification for their brand."

Suffolk breeder Rachel Chirgwin - who entered a pen of one of her clients' Merino-Suffolk lambs - says the competition is a great chance to benchmark her stud's genetics under commercial conditions.

In her Curlew Valley stud at Manoora she has had a focus on breeding for early maturity as well as animals with lean meat and intramuscular fat so she is keen to see how this comes out in the progeny of her rams.

"While there has been many sire evaluation trials and in breed comparisons, I don't believe there has ever been such a large real-life trial which compares how different breeds and bloodlines perform under the same treatment," she said.

"The topic of MSA grading is becoming more important for producers, so to get results on this will be useful for their future decision making."