Dietary supplementation of Moringa oleifera silage increases meat tenderness of Assaf lambs

•Dietary supplementation of ensiled Moringa oleifera improves meat tenderness of Assaf lambs.•Meat of Moringa-fed lambs is characterized by longer sarcomeres and lower intra-muscular fat.•Moringa oleifera based diet may be used to produce tender and lean lamb meat.

It is well-recognized, that dietary manipulation can alter the quality of lamb meat. Moringa-oleifera was previously shown to improve livestock product quality. In the current research, we tested the effect of dietary ensiled Moringa oleifera, accounting for 6.8% of TMR, on quality characteristics of longissimus lumborum (LL) muscle of growing Assaf lambs. Steaks of Moringa-fed lambs were tenderer (27.5 ± 4.72 N), comparing to the controls (34.8 ± 4.28N), by means of shear-force (SF; P ≤ 0.01), and characterized by longer sarcomeres (2.24 ± 0.23 and 1.88 ± 0.11 μm, respectively; P ≤ 0.001) and lower intra-muscular fat (IMF) content (3.83 ± 1.60 and 5.94 ± 1.82%, respectively; P ≤ 0.05). No difference was revealed between groups in collagen content (CC). It is suggested that Moringa oleifera based dietary manipulation could be implemented in order to design a tender and lean lamb meat.