Mineral characteristics of viscera of Hulunbuir grassland short-tailed sheep from Inner Mongolia, China

Nutritional components, especially minerals of Hulunbuir grassland short-tailed sheep's viscera and muscle lack systematic detection and evaluation. To complement this deficiency, a total of 162 samples were collected from the heart, lung, liver, kidney, rumen, reticulum, omasum, small intestine and longissimus dorsi of grassland short-tailed sheep, and 26 mineral elements were determined. Principal component analysis (PCA), traditional descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were used to compare the mineral element characteristics of viscera and longissimus dorsi. PCA result showed that the mineral characteristics of the viscera and longissimus dorsi were obviously different. There was a significant positive correlation between the contents of Co and Mo, and between Se and Cd in viscera (p < 0.01). The contents of Zn (3.27 +/- 0.3 mg/100 g), Fe (12.9 +/- 3.5 mg/100 g), Cu (3.32 +/- 1.7 mg/100 g), Mo (101 +/- 21 mu g/100 g) and Co (4.90 +/- 0.8 mu g/100 g) in liver, Se (50.4 +/- 25 mu g/ 100 g) in kidney and Ca (80.7 +/- 50 mg/100 g) and Mn (458 +/- 270 mu g/100 g) in omasum were significantly higher than those in other viscera. The contents of Zn (3.36 +/- 1.3 mg/100 g) and Cu (6.24 +/- 1.8 mg/100 g) in longissimus dorsi were significantly higher than other viscera. The heavy metals in all viscera did not exceed the limits for livestock viscera set by the national food safety standards. The overall mineral characteristics of the same viscera were different among different months of age.