Abstract
Six growing male one-humped camels (3 Maghrabi and 3 Sudani) were used to study their meat quantity and quality in terms of dressing percentage, boneless meat percentage, fat deposits, wholesale cuts, chemical composition and physical properties under Egyptian conditions.
Non significant difference was recorded between Sudani and Maghrabi camel in dressing out percentage without hump (59.81 vs. 59.26%). However, including the hump, Maghrabi breed had higher dressing out percentage than Sudani breed (65.33 Vs 62.12%).
The dissection per cent of the whole carcass of Sudani and Maghrabi camel breed were 67.47 vs. 63.33% for lean meat, 10.34 vs. 16.52% for fat, 22.19 vs. 20.16% for bone and 77.81 vs. 79.84% for boneless meat.
Shoulder, ribs, plat, flank, leg and hump cuts percentages differed significantly (P<0.05) due to breed of camel, while the other wholesale cuts showed similar percentages. Sudani camel had higher shoulder and leg percentage (21.88 and 29.07%) than Maghrabi camel (20.66 and 26.25%, respectively). While, Maghrabi camel had lower ribs, flank and hump percentages (19.84, 7.30 and 10.44%, respectively) than Sudani camel (17.73, 5.21 and 3.94%, respectively).
Significant differences between Sudani and Maghrabi camels were recorded in moisture (74.10 vs. 71.70%), fat (4.30 vs. 7.58%), collagen (1.10 vs. 0.72%) and ash (1.47 vs. 1.06%). However, the breed difference was not significant in protein content (20.12 vs. 19.66%). The pH values of meat were similar either immediately after slaughtering (6.34 vs. 6.37) or at 24 hrs (5.83 vs. 5.82) for Sudani vs. Maghrabi camel breed.
This study indicated that camel meat of both breeds had similar nutritive value to that of beef meat, even the Sudani camel breed contains more moisture than Maghrabi camel breed, while, the Maghrabi contains more fat than the Sudani breed. According to the present results, the Maghrabi and Sudani camel breed can be used as good source of animal protein and contribute to solving the problem of shortage of meat in Egypt.