The present study was designed to evaluate the relationship between the body measurements (BMs) and carcass characteristics of hair sheep lambs. Twenty hours before slaughter, the shrunk body weight (SBW) and BMs were recorded. The BMs involved were height at withers (HW), rib depth (RD), body diagonal length (BDL), body length (BL), pelvic girdle length (PGL), rump depth (RuD), rump height (RH), pin-bone width (PBW), hook-bone width (HBW), abdomen width (AW), girth (GC), and abdomen circumference (AC). After slaughter, the carcasses were weighed and chilled for 24 h at 1 °C, and then were split by the dorsal midline. The left-half was dissected into total soft tissues (muscle + fat; TST) and bone (BON), which were weighed separately. The weights of viscera and organs (VIS), internal fat (IF), and offals (OFF—skin, head, feet, tail, and blood) were also recorded. The equations obtained for predicting SBW, HCW, and CCW had an r² ranging from 0.89 to 0.99, and those for predicting the TST and BON had an r² ranging from 0.74 to 0.91, demonstrating satisfactory accuracy. Our results indicated that use of BMs could accurately and precisely be used as a useful tool for predicting carcass characteristics of hair sheep lambs.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the physicochemical and texture changes of the Manchego-style cheese produced from hair sheep (Pelibuey) throughout 180 days of ripening, as well as consumer’s acceptance. Cheese pH was constant from 1 to 180 days of ripening. Moisture, water activity, fat, elasticity and hardness decreased from day 1 to day 180, while protein, trichloroacetic acid-soluble N and free amino acid increased. Cheese lightness decreased as ripening time increased, while elasticity and hardness decreased. Principal Component Analysis was useful in discriminating cheeses according to their physicochemical composition and that allowed cheeses to be classified in two groups according to their ripening time and this resulted in those with less than 60 days and those with more than 90 days of ripening. Compared with cheeses ripened at 1 and 90 days, aged cheeses at 180 days reduced scores for appearance, color, odor, taste, texture and overall acceptance. Overall, Manchego-style cheeses from hair sheep had the usual ripened-cheese physicochemical changes.

This study compares the performance of XGBoost and LightGBM models for predicting live weights of Yucatecan Criollo pigs from biometric measurements and examines the structural and algorithmic differences that affect model fit. Detailed analysis of the models’ hyperparameter optimization and variable importance revealed how each model approaches the data and prioritizes features. This study was conducted on 182 Yucatecan Criollo pigs (134 females and 48 males). When model performances were evaluated, the XGBoost model showed superior prediction performance with acceptable accuracy and lower error rates in the test dataset, with R² = 0.905, RMSE = 5.704, and MAE = 3.636. In contrast, the LightGBM model produced acceptable results under certain hyperparameter combinations with R² = 0.824, RMSE = 7.772, and MAE = 5.505. While the robust performance of both models requires strategic decisions in model selection and optimization, it is recommended to consider the dataset’s nature in feature selection and hyperparameter settings. This study provides important insights for simplifying the model and improving its efficiency in machine learning applications, and serves as a reference for more effective model use.