Growth performance, carcass traits and meat quality of lambs fed with increasing levels of spineless cactus

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of inclusion of the spineless cactus variety Miticla (0, 150, 300, and 450 g/kg) on the performance, carcass traits and meat quality of lambs. Forty crossbred Santa Ines lambs with an initial weight of 18.6 +/- 2.8 kg were distributed in a randomized design with initial body weight as a covariate. There was a quadratic effect on dry matter, and metabolizable energy intake with the maximum points with the inclusion of the spineless cactus of 243 and 284 g/day, respectively. While the digestible crude protein intake did not differ. The average daily gain increased linearly. There was a quadratic effect on body weight at slaughter, empty body weight, hot carcass yield, and cold carcass yield with maximum values estimated with 265, 299, 254, and 285 g/kg of spineless cactus inclusion. The hot and cold carcass yields, the weights of shoulder, rib, leg, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, perirenal fat, and carcass compactness index increased. Chemical and physical meat quality traits were not affected; however, the oleic acid, monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), MUFA and saturated fatty acids (SFA) ratio (MUFA/SFA), hypocholesterolemic and hypercholesterolemic fatty acids ratio (h:H), and desirable fatty acids increased linearly, while heptadecanoic, cisvaccenic, transvaccenic, linoleic, eicosapentaenoic acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), PUFA/SFA ratio, the total of omega 3 and omega 6 presented quadratic behavior, with maximum values estimated with levels of 255, 245, 380, 298, 217, 238, 250, 233, and 243 g/kg of spineless cactus. The inclusion of spineless cactus up to 275 g/kg in the diet of lambs improved carcass traits and the desirable fatty acids' profile of the meat.