Growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and slaughter traits of male fattening lambs under different feeding standards

作者：Tao Ma, Fan Wan, Dong Yang, Kaidong Deng, Yang Kailun, Qiyu Diao · 发表于：Animal nutrition · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.1016/j.aninu.2018.07.002 · 被引用次数：24 · 研究领域：Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive Physiology、Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock、Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact

This study compared the growth performance, nutrient utilization, and slaughter traits of Dorper crossbred male lambs fed as per the established nutrition recommendations for sheep, with an aim to verify the efficacy of different feeding standards. A total of 576 lambs (4 months of age, 28.3 ± 0.86 kg BW) were randomly allotted to 3 treatments with 12 replicates per treatment (16 lambs per replicate). The lambs were fed diets formulated according to the following 3 nutritional systems: the nutrient requirements of Dorper crossbred lambs established by Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), NRC (National Research Council), (2007), and AFRC (Agricultural and Food Research Council) (1993). The experiment lasted for 81 d. Feed intake was recorded every 3 days, and lambs were weighed every 20 days. Digestibility trials were conducted with 6 lambs each group from d 42 to 53 and d 70 to 81. At the end of the experiment, 10 lambs randomly chosen from each group were sacrificed to determine the carcass traits and meat quality. The results indicated that the lambs in the NRC group had the highest dry matter intake (DMI), followed by those in the AFRC and CAAS groups ( P < 0.05). The average daily gain, carcass weight, and dressing percentage were higher for lambs in the CAAS group than those in the NRC group ( P < 0.05). The lambs in the CAAS group had the lowest feed conversion ratio, followed by those in the AFRC and NRC groups ( P < 0.05). The apparent digestibility of DM ...