Effect of weaning age and concentrate supplementation on growth and carcass characteristics of mecheri lambs

A study was carried out at Mecheri Sheep Research Station, Pottaneri, Tamil Nadu from October 2016 to February 2017 to evaluate the effect of weaning age and level of concentrate supplementation on growth performance and carcass characteristics of Mecheri lambs. A total of 72 Mecheri lambs (males and females) were divided into three treatments, i.e. weaned at 90 days (T₁), 75 days (T₂) and 60 days (T₃) with 24 lambs in each treatment. Each treatment was again divided into two groups, based on the concentrate supplementation level, i.e., 1.0 and 1.5% of body weight. Body weight of lambs was recorded fortnightly for 150 days. Pooled higher final body weight was recorded in 75-days weaned group (T₂) at 7 months of age (20.32±0.60 kg) followed by 90 days (20.01±0.59 kg in T₁) and 60 days (19.13±0.48 kg in T₂). Similar pattern was observed for average daily gain in body weights; it was 69.88 g in T followed by 68.67g in T₁ and 63.00g in T₂. Between the concentrate supplementation groups, 75-days weaned (T₂) lambs fed with 1.5% concentrate supplementation group had higher final body weight at 210 days (22.49 ± 0.58 kg). Slaughter study revealed that carcass characteristics were almost similar among different weaning groups. However, lambs weaned at 90 days (T₁) recorded higher value for most of thetraits, especially, pre slaughter weight, hot carcass weight and carcass length, whereas, the dressing percentage and meat: bone ratio was more in T₂ and T₃ group lambs. The study also revealed that Mecheri lambs weaned at 75 days of age had better growth compared with early (60 days of age) and normal weaned (90 days of age) lambs.