Nadhim Mohamad Jawad Ali⁽¹⁾, Waleed  Youssef  Kassem, ^(2)*and Amad Falah Hassan⁽²⁾

(1). Department of Veterinary Public Health, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq.

(2). Department of Animal Production, College of Agriculture, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq.

(*Corresponding author: Waleed Kassin, email: waleed.yosief@uobasrah.edu.iq)

Received: 10/03/2023         Accepted: 29/03/2023

Abstract: 

This study has been carried out in the animal field of the College of Agriculture, University of Basrah, for the period 1/12/2020 to 1/3/2021. Twenty-four male lambs of Arabi breed  were randomly distributed to six treatments (4 lambs for each treatment), to investigate the effect of two type of diet (pellet and crushed) with the level of malic acid and the on some production traits such as live weights, total and daily weight gain, feed intake, feed efficiency and some of carcass characteristics such as hot carcass, dressing percentage, major cuts (neck, shoulder, rib, loin, leg and fat-tail) as well as carcass waste organs. The treatments were as follows: (T1) crushed condensed diet without the addition of malic acid (0). (T2) crushed condensed diet with the addition of malic acid as 4 g/kg feed. (T3) crushed condensed diet with added malic acid as 8 g/kg feed. (T4) without adding malicious acid (0). (T5) pellet feed with added malic acid as a 4 g/kg feed. (T6) pellet feed with added malic acid for 8 g/kg feed. The results indicated the pellet diet and  the level of 4g of malic acid/kg of feed treatments were a significant increase (P<0.05) in the live body weights, total and daily gain weight, dressing percentage, feed efficiency, hot carcass weight and some weights of cuts compared to crushed diet and of 0g of malic acid/kg of feed treatments.

Keywords: Malic acid, Carcass characteristics, Male Arabi lambs, Pellet and crushed diets.

Full paper in English:  pdf