Masters Theses

Date of Award

8-1953

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Animal Husbandry

Major Professor

Charles S. Hobbs

Committee Members

J. W. Cole, Harold J. Smith, J. O. Mundt

Abstract

Hogs are probably marketed with less emphasis on carcass value than any other class of livestock. In the past, average weight largely has determined market grade in buying and selling of slaughter hogs. Dressing percentage combined with weight has determined the value of hogs to the packer buyer. Average weight and dressing percentage do not give adequate consideration to the differences among market hogs that affect the value of the pork products obtained.

The Production and Marketing Administration of the United States Department of Agriculture has recently released standards for grading hogs. These standards for grading slaughter hogs have been offered to encourage buying and selling of hogs on a merit basis rather than on weight schedules. A merit basis of buying and selling hogs should benefit the producer, the packer, and the consumer. If the producer is given full value for his hogs on a quality basis he will increase his efforts toward producing a more desirable hog. The packer could pay full value for the lowest “honest killers”, discount those that do not come up to the standards, and still have similar or greater returns. The consumer could receive a quality product that should mean more desirable pork each succeeding year that a merit selling plan is in progress.

However, in order to encourage and promote the adoption of this system of buying and selling by the packers and procedure, we need more information on the differences in carcass values of various weights and grades of hogs. The cured pork side or bacon is for the most part being ignored in the evaluation of pork carcasses. There has been very little data collected which gives the cured side of bacon consideration in estimating the carcass differences. In fact sliced bacon is often described as a fat cut, when, in reality, it is one of the highest selling retail cuts. It is also the highest in proportion of total edible meat of any wholesale cut of the pork carcass.

According to published data to date, sex has little or no influence on the quality or cutout value of pork carcasses. But carcasses are often divided by sex groups for analytical purposes.

Quality of pork is largely based on proportion of lean, color, and firmness of the carcass. A soft dark-colored carcass is usually considered to be low in quality and produces cuts that will not hold up well in the retailer’s counter. Furthermore this type of pork is severely criticized and is often downgraded. Some workers believe, however, that softness has been overemphasized in its relation to low quality, especially with cured pork products.Present day methods of processing bacon with the use of refrigeration has perhaps changed some of the criticisms of soft pork.

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