Carcass characteristics of Malpura male lambs maintained under different feeding regimes

Carcass traits of 6 month old Malpura finisher male lambs maintained on adlib milk suckling and grazing (G-I), milk suckling + creep ration + grazing (G-II) and milk suckling + milk replacer + creep ration + grazing (G-III) during pre weaning stage and after weaning on grazing and adlib concentrate mixture feeding up to the age of 6 month were studied. Average pre slaughter weight of lambs was 24.23±2.69, 29.73±1.75 and 28.47±0.86 kg in G-I, G-II and G-III, respectively. Hot carcass weight was 11.95±1.49, 15.07±1.07 and 14.37±0.71 kg in the three groups, respectively. Dressing yield on empty live weight (ELW) was 56.16±1.00% in G-I, 56.85±0.71 in G-II and 56.65±1.08 in G-III. The standard cuts of the carcass contained 55.24 lean, 16.50 fat and 23.48% bone in G-1, 54.32, 20.49 and 21.79% in G-II and 49.48, 18.31 and 22.16% in G-III, respectively. The present study suggested that rearing of weaner lambs on grazing and ad lib concentrates supplementation provided carcasses of desirable weight and quality except higher proportion of fat, which could be brought to desirable level of 12–14% by suitable feeding management.