The Effect of Magnesium Oxide and Sodium Bicarbonate on Percentage of Right Half Carcass Cuts and Correlation Fat-tail Weight with Carcass Components in Lori-Bakhtiari Fattening Lambs

In order to investigate the effect of magnesium oxide and sodium bicarbonate on the percentage of the right half-carcass cuts, and correlation between fat-tail weight and carcass components in Lori-Bakhtiari fattening ram lambs, an experiment was carried out in a completely randomized design on 18 of ram lambs with ages of 150 ± 5 days and the average weight of 35.1 ± 0.62 kg with a diet containing 2.6 mcal/kg of metabolizable energy and 14.16 % crude protein. The lambs were fed in individual cages for 75 days with the following diets: 1) control diet, 2) control diet + 0.05% magnesium oxide and 3) control diet + 0.2% sodium bicarbonate. After the end of the experiment, all the lambs were slaughtered and their carcasses were analyzed physically. The results of the experiments indicated a negative correlation between the weight of fat-tail and various components of the carcass, especially its valuable parts (leg, sirloin, brisket and shoulder). The weight of half- carcass cuts except the sirloin, did not show a statistically significant difference between the experiment groups (p>0.05). The highest average weights of shoulder, sirloin, brisket belonged to the group receiving 0.05% magnesium oxide. No statistically significant difference was observed in average weight of traits related to the neck (p>0.05). The group receiving 0.2 %sodium bicarbonate (0.571 ± 0.063 kg) and the control group (0.535 ± 0.062 kg) had the highest and lowest mean weight of neck meat, respectively.