Supplementation of sugar beet pulp and roasted canola seed in a concentrate diet altered carcass traits, muscle (longissimus dorsi) composition and meat sensory properties of Arabian fattening lambs

This study investigated the effects of sugar beet pulp (SBP) and roasted canola seed (RCS) on performance, carcass traits, muscle composition and meat sensory properties in fattening lambs fed a concentrate diet. Twenty-four Arabian male lambs (23.7 ± 2.5 kg BW, and 118 ± 10 d age) were used in a completely randomized design with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement. Lambs were fed with concentrate diets containing 1) Standard concentrate diet (CON); 2) 7% Roasted Canola Seed diet (RCS); 3) 36% Sugar Beet Pulp diet (SBP); 4) SBP plus RCS diet (SBP + RCS). After 99 days of feeding animals were slaughtered, carcasses chilled overnight and muscle LD samples were collected at 24 h post-slaughter for the determination of meat quality parameters and fatty acid composition. There were no RCS × SBP interaction observed for any of the carcass traits or carcass components or muscle quality traits except some of the individual fatty acids particularly oleic acid (18:1cis) and linoleic acid (18:2cis), such that adding SBS and RCS together significantly reduced these contents compared with RCS group but values were still significantly higher than the CON or SBP group. Results showed that inclusion of SBP (average of SBP and SBP + RCS) significantly increased carcass fatness, subcutaneous fat thickness, fat tail weight and intramuscular fat (IMF) content and Warner-Bratzler shear force. Inclusion of RCS (average of RCS and SBP + RCS) significantly increased hot carcass weight, dressing percentage, loin weight, IMF and meat sensory characteristics of tenderness, juiciness, flavor and overall liking. The inclusion of roasted canola seed in a concentrate diet not only improved growth performance and loin weight but also improved IMF content and meat sensory characteristics in Arabian fattening lambs. Replacing barley grain partially by sugar beet pulp significantly increased body fatness and IMF content but this did not influence the sensory characteristics of meat in Arabian fattening lambs.