Abstract

An on- farm trial was conducted by feeding intensively with locally available cereal crop residue based complete rations (mash form) and compared them with conventional sole grazing system to assess the meat parameters in native ram lambs. Two rations, viz., sorghum (R-I) and maize (R-II) straw-based complete rations (50% roughage, 50% concentrate) were prepared mash form and fed to ram lambs intensively and results compared with conventional grazing (R-III) ram lambs. Results indicated that, the carcass weight, breast and shank, neck and shoulder, leg, loin, rack and deboned meat proportions in ram lambs fed sorghum and maize straw- based complete rations were comparable ( P > 0.05) and also no difference in meat characteristics was observed in the solely grazed animals. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that, feeding of crop residue based complete rations could not affect the quality of meat over grazing ram lambs.

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