Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Optimizing feed strategies is critical in livestock production to enhance animal performance, nutrient utilization, and meat quality. Feed form, such as pelleted, mash, or blended forms, significantly influences these parameters. Investigating the optimal feed form for fat-tailed sheep production can improve economic outcomes and meat quality. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of dietary feed forms - pelleted (P10), mash (M10), and a blended form consisting of 50% pellet and 50% mash (M5P5) - on nutrient digestibility, animal performance, carcass characteristics, and meat quality attributes in fat-tailed sheep. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifteen fat-tailed lambs were randomly allocated to three experimental groups receiving either 100% mash feed (M10), a 50:50 mixture of mash and pelleted feed (M5P5), or 100% pelleted feed (P10) for a 90-day feeding trial. Feed intake parameters (dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber, and nitrogen-free extract) were recorded. Nutrient digestibility was assessed, and production performance measures, including body weight gain, average daily gain (ADG), feed efficiency ratio (FER), and feeding cost per gain were determined. Post-slaughter carcass traits, proximate meat composition, cholesterol content, pH, water-holding capacity (WHC), cooking loss, and shear force values were evaluated. RESULTS: Dietary feed forms had no significant impact (p > 0.05) on feed intake, nutrient digestibility, ADG, or FER. However, significant differences (p < 0.05) emerged in carcass traits, notably with increased hot carcass weights observed in M5P5 (19.57 kg) and P10 (19.40 kg) compared to M10 (17.10 kg). Feed form significantly influenced meat-to-bone ratio, with M5P5 and P10 groups exhibiting superior ratios relative to the mash-fed group. Meat quality analysis indicated significant variations (p < 0.05) in WHC and cooking loss; the M5P5 group demonstrated enhanced WHC (63.2%) and reduced cooking loss (18.4%) compared to other treatments. Proximate composition, cholesterol content, pH, and shear force were unaffected by feed form (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The blended mash-pellet diet (M5P5) effectively enhanced specific meat quality parameters, notably WHC and cooking loss, without compromising growth performance or nutrient utilization efficiency. These findings indicate potential for the strategic use of blended feeds in fat-tailed sheep production to optimize meat quality attributes, although further studies examining long-term economic and metabolic impacts are recommended.