Influence of solid residue from alcoholic extraction of brown propolis on intake, digestibility, performance, carcass and meat characteristics of lambs in feedlot

Abstract

Propolis can be an alternative to the use of ionophores in ruminants due to presence of compounds like flavonoids, fenolic acids, esters, fenolic aldehydes and ketones. In this study the impact of solid residue from alcoholic extraction of brown propolis (RBP) added to the diet for feedlot lambs on nutrients intake and digestibility, productive performance, body morphometric measures, carcass characteristics and meat fatty acid profile was determined. Twenty-four Texel × Suffolk crossbred castrated male lambs (19.83 ± 2.07 kg) were fed diet with 0 (negative control), 5, 10 g RBP per kg dry matter (DM) or monensin (positive control, 26 mg/kg DM), in total ration with roughage:concentrate ratio of 400:600 (w/w). RBP addition regardless used dose positively influenced (P < 0.05) productive performance parameters (final weight and daily weight gain). However, diet with 5 g RBP/kg DM lowered feed conversion ratio in comparison to negative control. Nutrient intake, digestibility of DM (684 g/kg), organic matter (701 g/kg) and fibre (695 g/kg) were similar among treatments. Live body length (78.89 cm), external carcass length (75.4 cm) and carcass compactness (0.253 kg/cm) also did not differ between groups. Moreover, diet supplementation with RBP did not affect hot and chilled carcass yields (451 and 447 g/kg, respectively). The addition of 5 g RBP/kg DM caused lower concentration of stearic acid (C18:0) and higher of oleic (C18:1n-9) and linoleic acids (C18:2n-6) in longissimus muscle of lambs in comparison to muscle from animals fed diet with monensin or control one. So, RBP can be used as nutritional additive to lamb feed to increase animal performance and modify meat fatty acid profile.