This study evaluated the effects of different dietary ratios of forage sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L) hay (FSH) to silk flower hay (Calotropis procera SW) (SFH) on true, biological, and retail carcass yields, carcass cooling losses, retail cut yields, tissue composition and carcass muscularity of Santa Inês lambs. Twenty-four intact male lambs were assigned to one of the following four treatments: 100:0 FSH:SFH, 66:33 FSH:SFH , 33:66 FSH:SFH, or 0:100 FSH:SFH in a completely randomized design (six animals/treatment). Animals were slaughtered at 30.0±0.4 kg of body weight or at 70 days of experiment. There was no effect of treatments on the biological, true, and retail carcass yields, which averaged, respectively 53.17, 45.97%, and 44.34%. Except for shoulder clod and leg cuts, increasing the dietary levels of SFH significantly reduced the slaughter body weight, empty body weight, hot and cold carcass weights, retail cut yields, tissue composition, and carcass muscularity. It can be concluded that the inclusion of up to 16.5% of the diet DM (33% of the dietary forage) as SFH had no detrimental effect on carcass quality.
Calotropis procera SW; carcass; loin eye area; meat cuts
