Carcass and Meat Quality Characteristics of Omani Sheep Fed Diets Based on Raw or Processed Mesquite (Prosopis Juliflora) Pods

Inclusion of soaked or roasted Mesquite pods at high level in concentrate diets for sheep to improve feed intake and reduce production cost has not been studied. The novelty of this study was to evaluate the effect of incorporating soaked or roasted Mesquite pods at 50% level in formulated concentrates on carcass and meat quality of Omani sheep. The Mesquite-pod-based diets were formulated and pelleted from 500 g/kg ground Mesquite pods, 240 g/kg wheat bran, 200 g/kg barley grain, 50 g/kg local dried sardines and 10 g/kg of salt. Twenty four 10 months-old intact Omani male lambs with average body weight of 27.3 kg (± 0.5 kg) were used in a feeding trial for 84 days. They were allocated to four diet combination groups; commercial concentrate (CC); raw Mesquite pods based concentrate (RMPC); roasted Mesquite pods based concentrate (ROMPC) and soaked Mesquite pods based concentrate (SMPC) group. The sheep fed CC had higher (P<0.05) slaughter weight, carcass weight and empty body weight (EBW) and full digestive tract content compared to both RMPC and SMPC groups but not with those fed ROMPC.