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Venison Quality - The relationship of body
condition score with consumer perceptionBy Dr Robert Mulley, Christine Hutchison, Dr Jason Flesch, Dr Eva Wiklund, Oleg Nicetic
May 2006
RIRDC Publication No 06/043 RIRDC Project No UWS-18A
Post-slaughter management of carcasses compared Achilles tendon and pelvic suspension methods of hanging to determine effects on venison quality. Further experimental work compared deer raised on pasture with deer fed barley prior to slaughter to determine effects on venison quality. Venison from deer subjected to each of the experimental procedures was tested by sensory panellists from a range of quality attributes and overall liking of the meat.
In the present study red and fallow deer between 12 and 30 months of age raised on pasture usually had a BCS between 2 and 3. Animals with BCS of 4 were achieved by feeding grain for greater than 100 days prior to slaughter. Variation in BCS did not result in significant differences for most of the measured meat quality attributes for either fallow or red deer. Sensory evaluation by taste panellists determined that there was a greater overall liking of venison from animals with BCS 3 and 4, compared with BCS 2 but this trend was not significant. There was a significant increase (p<0.05) in intramuscular fat as BCS rose from 2 to 4 for both species. This difference was not detected by sensory panellists. There was a gradual increase in tenderness of venison as BCS increased with venison from animals with BCS 4 being significantly more tender than venison from animals with BCS 2. However venison from animals with BCS 3 was not significantly more tender than venison from animals with BCS above or below condition score 3 and the difference in shear force values from cooked venison across the range of condition scores was low overall. It was concluded that deer with BCS ranging from 2 to 4 can be slaughtered for venison with no significant loss of eating quality.
In the present study venison from deer fed grain (barley) for greater than 100 days prior to slaughter had a higher flavour strength according to sensory panellists. Venison from grain-fed deer also had lower colour stability and therefore lower display life than venison from pasture-fed deer when sold as fresh or chilled product. Both of these outcomes need to be considered by wholesalers sending product into selected markets.
Hanging carcasses from 5 to 10 days post-slaughter did not improve meat quality parameters, including tenderness. Deer carcasses are usually broken into primal cuts between 1 and 3 days postslaughter and results of the current study show that carcasses with a BCS of 2 to 3 can be processed at a range of times after slaughter without adversely affecting meat quality parameters. This finding was consistent for fallow does and bucks. It was concluded that factors other than post-slaughter hanging time of carcasses were more likely to affect venison quality.
The pelvic suspension (tender stretch) method of hanging carcasses post-slaughter was compared with traditional hanging by the Achilles tendon to determine effects on meat tenderness. Pelvic suspension of red and fallow deer carcasses significantly increased meat tenderness in all sexes in every experiment where this technique was tested. Pelvic suspension also had a positive effect on water holding properties by reducing moisture loss of fresh chill-stored venison, an important consideration given that juiciness is the second most important characteristic of meat according to consumers. It was concluded that the carcasses from all deer slaughtered should be subjected to pelvic suspension hanging post-mortem to increase tenderness, juiciness and overall liking of the meat.
Overall this study has shown that venison is a high quality product with biochemical parameters similar to, or more desirable than, other domestic meats. Sensory evaluation showed the product to be strongly appreciated by men and women between the ages of 25 and 55, and differences in overall liking between red and fallow deer venison were not detected by panellists in this study.
 
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