Ultrasonic Measurement of Fatness in Swine

Abstract

Mechanical probes and ultrasonic fatness measurements were made on 56 market pigs. The probing sites were about 2 in. off the midline of the body behind the shoulder, at the middle of the back and at the rear of the loin. After removing differences due to sex and carcass weight, the correlations between average ultrasonic probe at a frequency of 2.5 mc/s and percent lean cuts was −.90. The corresponding correlations with probes as a frequency of 1.5 mc/s was −.76 while that with the mechanical probe was −.89. In particular, the ultrasonic probe at the loin (2.5 mc/s) gave a high correlation with percent ham.