Carcass characteristics of lambs fed diets with different agroindustrial residues

The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of feeding different agroindustrial residues, soybean hulls, brewers rice powder or malt beer, on the carcass characteristics of lambs finished in feedlot. Twelve non castrated, Texel male lambs,, with average initial weight of 22,41kg, were randomly distributed in the treatments. The experimental design was a completely randomized and the averages were compared by Tukey test at 5 % probability. A greater neck weight was found (p <0.05) in lambs fed broken rice compared to those fed powdered malt beer. There were no significant differences (p> 0.05) between treatments for the other variables evaluated. The average results obtained were 17.42 kg for hot carcass weight, 16.94 kg for cold carcass weight, 42.80 % for hot carcass yield, 41.64% for cold carcass yield and 2.72 % for cooling loss. The following values were obtain in the different commercial cuts evaluated for weight and carcass proportion, respectively: 5.38 kg and 31.86 % for the leg, 3.42 and 20.15 % for shoulder, 6.87 kg and 40.58 % for rib and 1.26 kg and 7.41% for the neck. The average values for chemical composition were 72.36 % for moisture, 20.67 % for protein, 2.90 % for fat and 1.04 % for ash. The use of soybean hulls, brewers rice powder or malt beer for feeding lambs in feedlot did not differ in carcass characteristics within the standards expected for this animal category.