Two groups of 5 lambs were euthanized at the weaning (T45) and fattening stages (T90) to evaluate the use of microbial ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequences as potential microbial markers in relation to purine bases (PB) as a conventional marker. Both microbial markers originated similar microbial N concentrations (mg/g of DM), although T45 showed decreased values compared with the T90 group when eith...

1. Total body energy retention (ER) and metabolizable energy intake (MEI) values from experiments with 231 lambs (Suffolk male x (Border Leicester male x Cheviot female) female) housed indoors and given thirteen forage diets were used to estimate the metabolizable energy (ME) required for maintenance. 2. ER was measured using the comparative slaughter technique, and the lambs were fed at severa...

This study was aimed to determine the effect of feeding lambs diets with different proportions of double-low rapeseed and linseed and their supplementation with vitamin E on selected parameters of health quality of lamb meat. Lambs were fattened intensively to 30–35 kg body weight with a standard diet and experimental diets containing 10% full-fat rapeseed and linseed at a 2:1 or 1:1 ratio, wit...

The survivability from birth to slaughter of 1,487 Ripollesa lambs with a preslaughter overall mortality of 9.6% was studied under the proportional hazards framework, assuming a Weibull distribution for the baseline hazards function. A sire frailty model was fitted, with the common environment received by the lamb as an additional random source of variation. Common environment was considered ti...

fifty moghani male lambs with mean body weight of 28±1.9 kg were investigated in a completely randomized design for 98 days to assess the effect of replacing corn silage (cs) by amaranth silage (as) on weight gain, rumen fermentation and blood parameters. five iso-energetic and iso-nitrogenous diets, in which cs replaced by different levels of as (0, 75, 150, 225, or 300 g/kg of diet dm), were ...

Ovine meat production in France, which is continually regressing due to economic difficulties, is based on two main production systems. The first system is located in plains in which one part of the lambs born in the spring are fed grass, and the other part of the lambs are from out of the season parturitions following hormonal treatments and are fattened in sheep houses. The second system is r...