Performance, nutrient digestibility, and quantitative carcass traits of lambs fed sunflower seeds and vitamin E

• Autor(a) principal: Almeida, Fabiana Alves de
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Silva Sobrinho, Américo Garcia da, Manzi, Gabriela Milani, Lima, Natália Ludmila Lins, Sales, Ronaldo Oliveira, Zeola, Nivea Maria Brancacci Lopes, Endo, Viviane, Borghi, Thiago Henrique
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Semina. Ciências Agrárias (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/semagrarias/article/view/21549
• topic: Antioxidant; Commercial cuts; Oilseeds; Sheep.; Antioxidante; Cortes comerciais; Grãos de oleaginosas; Ovinos.

The aim of this study was to evaluate performance, nutrient digestibility, and carcass quantitative traits of lambs fed diets with and without sunflower seeds and vitamin E. Thirty-two uncastrated lambs at approximately 60 days of age, with 15 ± 0.2 kg, were housed in individual stalls and slaughtered at 32.0 ± 0.2 kg body weight. Treatments consisted of the following four diets: C = sugarcane + concentrate; CS = sugarcane + concentrate with sunflower seeds; CE = sugarcane + concentrate with 1,000 mg vitamin E kg-1 diet dry matter (DM); and CSE = sugarcane + concentrate with sunflower seeds and 1,000 mg vitamin E kg-1 diet DM. The experimental design was completely randomized, in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement (with and without sunflower seeds and with or without vitamin E, on the diet DM basis), and means were compared by Tukey’s test at 5% significance level. Consumption of vitamin E intake by the lambs provided (P < 0.05) the highest ether extract intake (20.91 g day-1) and consequently the highest (P < 0.05) digestibility of this nutrient (85.34%); however, it reduced (P < 0.05) the intakes of total carbohydrates (394.81 g day-1) and non-fibrous carbohydrates (242.47 g day-1) as a direct consequence of the diet composition. Inclusion of sunflower seeds and vitamin E in the lamb diets did not influence (P > 0.05) carcass morphological or quantitative measurements. Sunflower seeds and vitamin E showed to be satisfactory alternatives for inclusion in the concentrate for feedlot lambs, providing good performance and quality carcasses.