Table 1.
Cooling losses, carcass conformation, and fatness measurements, and weight and length of the metacarpus of growing lambs fed barley straw and concentrate containing sunflower meal and seed either untreated (control) or treated with malic acid and heat (MAH).
| Item | Concentrate | SEM 1 | p = | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Control | MAH | |||
| Cooling losses (%) | 2.63 | 2.43 | 0.172 | 0.590 |
| Carcass conformation (cm) 2 | ||||
| CWD | 19.3 | 19.3 | 0.34 | 0.973 |
| CTD | 20.9 | 22.0 | 0.48 | 0.134 |
| BUW | 53.8 | 54.1 | 0.54 | 0.634 |
| HLL | 22.3 | 22.1 | 0.35 | 0.693 |
| RP | 16.2 | 16.1 | 0.31 | 0.764 |
| ICL | 54.3 | 55.2 | 0.61 | 0.319 |
| Carcass compactness | 0.23 | 0.23 | 0.003 | 0.508 |
| Buttock/leg index | 2.42 | 2.46 | 0.056 | 0.550 |
| Dorsal fat thickness (cm) | 1.82 | 2.43 | 0.164 | 0.016 |
| Carcass fatness 3 | 2.22 | 2.25 | 0.160 | 0.906 |
| Pelvic-kidney fat 3 | 1.83 | 2.12 | 0.159 | 0.200 |
| Metacarpus weight (g) | 42.4 | 43.6 | 2.390 | 0.791 |
| Metacarpus length (cm) | 12.0 | 12.2 | 0.139 | 0.407 |
1 SEM: standard error of the mean 2 CWD: carcass width; CTD: thoracic depth; BUW: buttock width; HLL: hind limb length; RP: rump perimeter; ICL: internal carcass length; carcass compactness was calculated as (cold carcass weight/ICL) and buttock/leg index was estimated as (BUW/HLL). 3 Measured according a 1 to 4 points scale (1: minimum score; 4: maximum score).