Vegetable oil sources in feedlot lambs

Abstract

This experiment was carried out to evaluate the dry matter ingestion, average daily gain, feed:gain ratio, live weight at slaughter and days in trial in pure Santa Inês and 1/2Dorset ViSanta Inês lambs, submitted to isoenergetic (76.59% TDN) and isoprotein (17.48% crude protein) diets with different sources of vegetable oil (soybean oil, canola and linseed) and a control diet (without vegetable oil inclusion). The forage:concentrate ratio was 30:70, and oat hay was used as forage. Digestibility analysis was performed, using four no castrated lambs distributed in latin square design, for evaluating ingestion, fecal excretion and total digestibility of the nutrients. The dry matter intake, expresses in percentage of the live weight, was smaller in the lambs that received diet with canola oil in relation to those that received control diet. However, all the diets provided satisfactory average weight gain and feed:gain ratio. The dry matter (76.02%) and organic matter (76.82%) total digestibility values of the control diet were higher than diet with linseed oil (72.11% and 72.97%, respectively), although they have not difference of the diets with soybean (72.94 and 73.71%) and canola oils (73.45 and 74.25%) and these did not differ of the diet with linseed oil. Digestibility of ether extract was smaller in the control diet (84.02%), while the other diets showed average value of 91.98%. The vegetable oils reduced the digestibility of dry and organic matter, not affecting the digestion of the other nutrients.