@conference {69485,
	title = {Factors affecting dressing-out percentage of lambs},
	booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production},
	volume = {70},
	year = {2010},
	month = {Jun},
	pages = {121-126},
	publisher = {New Zealand Society of Animal Production},
	organization = {New Zealand Society of Animal Production},
	address = {Palmerston North},
	abstract = {The trial objective was to determine if hot carcass dressing out percentage (DO\%) calculated as hot carcass weight/live weight, differed with either lamb pre-slaughter live weight (SlLW) or total tissue depth over the 12th rib (GR) and to identify other factors altering DO\%. Data from ten experiments showed that SlLW only accounted for small, and measured GR moderate, amounts of variation in DO\%. DO\% was increased; by increasing the pre-slaughter fasting time; by increasing pasture allowance and by feeding more digestible forages such as clover, chicory or plantain versus grass based pasture. Similar trends occurred with the relationship between GR and DO\%. At the same SlLW wether lambs had a lower DO\% than female lambs but at the same GR there were no gender differences. At the same SlLW and GR, faster growing lambs had a lower DO\%. While many factors significantly altered DO\% including SlLW or GR, large amounts of variation in DO\% remained unexplained.},
	issn = {1176-5283},
	author = {Litherland AJ and Dynes RA and Moss RA}
}
