author(s)
Sandeep Kumar, Gopal Patra, Amitava Roy and Halim Sarkar

abstract
The study was conducted on sixteen numbers of castrated male Black Bengal goats from four different agro climatic zones of west Bengal at the age group of 6-9 month, 9-12 month and above 12 month age were selected from registered farmer under “AICRP on goat improvement, Black Bengal field unit-Kolkata” to compare the meat quality and physio-chemical characters of Black Bengal goats. In the present study, the moisture (%) of Black Bengal meat obtained from different clusters namely, Nadia, Murshidabad, Jhargram and Sundarban under four different agro-climatic zones at different age groups viz. 6-9 month, 9-12 month and above 12 month were found to be 75.27±0.25, 74.33±0.25 & 71.75±0.25 in Nadia; 75.33±0.25, 74.58±0.25 & 71.83±0.25 in Murshidabad; 75.31±0.25, 74.33±0.25 & 2.25±0.25 in Jhargram; and 75.50±0.25, 74.17±0.25 & 72.08± 0.25 in Sundarban cluster respectively. It was found that all age groups, the protein (mg/100ml) content of Black Bengal meat was found to be significantly lower in Nadia cluster. At 6-9 month and above 12 months the protein content was higher in Sundarban cluster. Regarding ash (%) content of Black Bengal meat significantly higher values were observed in Nadia cluster at 6-9 month age group and lower values were recorded in Sundarban cluster irrespective of age. There was significant variation in different ages has been observed for pH, cholesterol, water holding capacity and muscle fiber diameter of meat but no variation was recorded for pH, cholesterol, water holding capacity and muscle fiber diameter of meat among different cluster. Data has analyzed for the effect of age on meat quality among four agro-climatic zones and the current findings implies that not only age but the agro-climatic variations also has no influence on proximate composition and physico-chemical quality of goat meat.