A possible lower degree of maturity of animals fed with the high NDSF diet, which were characterised by a lower LW at slaughter, could underlie their higher proportions of head and hind part as well as lower meat to bone ratio in the hind leg (Pascual et al.,2008), which has been reported to be a good predictor of the meat to bone ratio of the whole carcass (Hernández et al.,1996).