A total of 85 male and female lambs of different breeds and commercial
crossbreeds, representing animals of good and poor body conformation, were used to
study the value of conformation as an indicator of muscle weight of the different
suoreqions and degree of musding of the hind leg in sheep. Body conformation was
determined objectively by the length of the hind leg of each carcass and degree of
muscling of the hind leg was expressed by the ratio between its muscle and bone
weights. The values of correlation coefficients indicated that conformation is
associated negatively (P<0.001) with both muscle weight of the subregions of the
thigh and the degree of musding of the hind leg (r = -0.596). Breed and carcass
weight showed highly significant effect (P<0.OO1) on muscle weight of the different
subregions and degree of musding of the hind leg. Sex and hind leg length,
representing the conformation type, had also highly significant effect on the degree of
muscling of the hind leg, however their effect on the hind leg muscle content was less
important. Generally, after the adjustment for the differences due to carcass weight
and hind leg length, lambs having poor conformation showed higher values for both
weights of the subregions musdes of the thigh and degree of muscling of the hind leg.
Conformation, expressed by the hind leg length, with the weight of the carcass were
found to be good predictors for muscle contents of the hind leg and its degree of
muscling (R2 = 0.59-0.86).