Efeitos da substituição do farelo de milho por farelo de palma na ração de terminação sobre as características da carcaça de cordeiros em confinamento.

Abstract

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of replacing corn bran by palm bran on carcass characteristics in Santa Inês sheep finished in feedlot. The experimental work was carried out at the Experimental Station of Pendência, belonging to Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária da Paraíba S.A, municipality of Soledade-PB. Forty Santa Inês sheep were used, with 90 days of age and initial live weight of 15.52kg. The animals were randomly assigned to 4 treatments which consisted of increasing levels of cactus bran meal in the ration (0,33,66 and 100%), replacing corn bran, and 10 replicates per treatment. The animals were slaughtered, then slaughter weight, empty body weight, weight and yield of hot carcass and cold carcass and biological yield were evaluated. Then the carcass was stored for 24 hours for further evaluation of conformation, morphometry, rib eye area, finish, kidney fat, marbling, morphometry, rib eye area, finish, kidney fat, marble and subcutaneous fat thickness. The leg was dissected into muscle, bone and total fat, which were weighed to determine the muscle:bone ratio, muscle:fat ratio, and yield. The means were submitted to analysis of variance and regression at 5% probability. There was no significant effect on conformation and biological yield. However, as the palm bran increased its participation in the diet, it promoted a negative linear effect for weight and fat yield, with a contrary trend being observed for muscle yield. Palm bran can biologically replace corn bran, since it increases muscularity and reduces carcass adiposity, without interfering in the biological yield of Santa Inês sheep in feedlot.