INVESTIGATIONS ON THE INFLUENCE OF BREED, SEX AND FEEDING ON LAMB CARCASS COMPOSITION AND QUALITY

The purpose of the study was to investigate the carcass and meat quali ty of different genotypes of lambs on extensive pasture without and wi th concentrate feeding. The investigations of the carcass and meat qua lity were carried out in 1992, 1993 and 1994. For the experiment the f ollowing different breeds of sheep were used: Schwarzkopfiges Fleischs chaf (SKF); Moorschnucken (MS); SKFML (Merinolangwollschaf); Scottish Blackface (BF)ML, with a stocking rate of 30 sheep and their lambs / 2.6 ha. The lambs were allowed to graze with their dams and had been s laughtered at the end of the trails. The obtained results indicate tha t grazing of fattening lambs on the rangeland with low-quality forages (under extensive management condition) can not be allowed to reach th e optimal growth of muscles. From this study it can be concluded that the optimal growthrate of lambs is possible either with high-quality f orage or with supplementation of concentrate at the end of the fatteni ng period. There are slight differences between breeds in the area of M. long. dorsi, the colour of the fat and pH-value. The content of lin olen acid in the M. long. dorsi is higher under extensive conditions ( without concentrate feeding) than for lambs that were supplemented wit h concentrates. Lambs only fed on grass indicated a higher concentrati on of Omega 3-fatty acid in comparison to lambs supplemented with conc entrate fed, which had more Omega 6-fatty acid. The differences were c aused by the variation of the feeding system. The ratio of SFA (satura ted fatty acids) to UFA (unsaturated fatty acids) was not different be tween the breeds and between the sexes, whereas the ration of polysatu rated to saturated FA (fatty acids) only slightly differed.