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Leather properties as a function of cattle breed

Content:
Since hundreds of years, tanners share the opinion that hides from different cattle breeds lead to varying leather qualities. Especially European hides from the alpine region (e. g. Simmentaler or brown origin) are preferred by tanners. These leathers feature a higher thickness, a maximum utilisation induced by a minor thickness difference over the whole area and a lower tensile strength in contrast to leathers from other breeds. However, are these alpine hides better because of their breed affiliation or because they are kept in special regional conditions? It is known that, besides the breed, also other factors can influence the rawhide and leather quality like age, gender, nutrition and climate conditions. In addition, present dairy and beef cattle are high-performance cattle by breeding, which leads to more crossbreeds than 100 years ago. Our intention was to find out, whether leather quality nowadays is still a function of breed or not.
For that purpose, 40 rawhides from four different cattle breeds (Angus, Charolais, Simmentaler, Limousin) were collected from the Saxon region. From each breed, five male and five female rawhides were
collected. The age of each individual was restricted to two years. All 40 rawhides were tanned with the same technology for furniture leather. Leather quality was characterized by determining chemical and
physical parameters. Chemical parameters included collagen content, fat content and ignition lost (DIN 181218). The physical parameters were tensile strength (DIN EN ISO 3376), elongation at break (DIN EN
ISO 3376) and stitch tear resistance (DIN EN ISO 23910).
The analyses revealed that the chemical parameters were identical for all examined breeds. For this reason, the chemical composition of a cattle skin is irrespective of breed origin. The tensile strength of the
leathers showed only a small significant difference between Angus and Limousin (p= 0.05). Leathers from Limousin hides showed significantly different elongations at break compared to Angus, Charolais and
Simmentaler. The stitch tear resistance varied in nearly all breeds. Significant differences were detected between all breeds except between Angus and Charolais as well as Angus and Simmentaler. Plotting the measured physical values against gender or age of the individuals showed no correlation.
In summary, only minor differences between the cattle breeds were found. But this tendency must be confirmed by a larger quantity of test individuals. For this purpose, an analysis is planed with 100
individuals from different breeds and crossbreeds.
Take-Away:
Many tanners share the opinion that hides from different attle breeds lead to varying leather qualities.
We found only minor differences of the physical parameters between the cattle breeds with a random sample of 10 individuals per breed.
To confirm this tendency, an analysis is planed with 100 individuals from different breeds and crossbreeds.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:34333
Date28 June 2019
CreatorsStenzel, Sandra, Schröpfer, M., Prade, I., Meyer, Michael
ContributorsInternational Union of Leather Technologists and Chemists Societies
PublisherVerein für Gerberei-Chemie und -Technik e. V., Forschungsinstitut für Leder und Kunststoffbahnen (FILK) gGmbH
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:conferenceObject, info:eu-repo/semantics/conferenceObject, doc-type:Text
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Relationurn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa2-340872, qucosa:34087

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