The use of nutritional management after weaning for the production of heavier lamb carcasses from Greek dairy breeds

The present study was conducted to investigate whether nutritional treatmen ts can influence the carcass composition, potential consumer acceptability and cost of rearing, at any defined liveweight (LW) or proportion of breed mature weight (MW), in male lambs of three indigenous creek dairy breeds of sheep. Two trials were carried out each with 30 weaned lambs (about 42 day s) of the Boutsko (B), Serres (S) and Karagouniko (K) breeds. The lambs wer e reared under different conditions of diet, housing and management and wer e slaughtered at different degrees of maturity or different slaughter weigh ts. During the first trial, the lambs were individually fed on three levels : high (H), medium (M) and low (L) of concentrate (192g crude protein/kg DM and 11.3 MJ ME/kg DM) and Lucerne hay (182 g crude protein/kg DM and 8.3 M J ME/kg DM) offered ad libitum. During the second trial, the lambs were gro up fed indoors for 63 days on three levels (also denoted as H, RI acid L) o f the same concentrate and Lucerne hay ad libitum, and then finished on irr igated sown pasture (Lolium, perenne + Trifolium repens). It was found that in both trials, breed of lambs and concentrate allowances (CA) had a signi ficant effect (P < 0.001) both on daily LW gain (g) and time taken to reach the target LW. The proportion of fat in the carcasses of lambs was affecte d significantly by the breed and LW at slaughter of lambs (P < 0.001) and a lso by the CA (P < 0.01) in year 1 whereas in year 2 only LW at slaughter h ad a significant effect (P < 0.05). Lambs finished indoors were fatter than those finished on irrigated sown pasture. The results suggest that manipul ation of post-weaning nutrition for the Greek dairy breeds, based on locall y available feeds, can be used to produce consumer acceptable carcasses hea vier than the traditional from suckled lambs and the marketing period can b e extended to avoid the current oversupply at traditional marketing times.