Vet World   Vol.14   January-2021  Article-30

The inclusion of black cumin meal improves the carcass characteristics of growing Awassi lambs

Background and Aim: Black cumin meal (BCM) is the principal by-product that can be obtained from black cumin seed (Nigella sativa L) after the oil is removed from the fruit and represents 70-75% of the fruit weight. The aim of this experiment was to assess the influence of feeding BCM on the carcass characteristics and meat quality of growing lambs.

Materials and Methods: Twenty-four Awassi lambs were randomly divided into two dietary treatments. The lambs were penned individually in single pens and provided access to ad libitum feed and water. The dietary treatments were no BCM (control [CON]; n=12) or 150 g BCM/kg (BCM 150; n=12) of dietary dry matter.

Results: Lambs fed BCM had greater (p≤0.01) fasting live BW, and hot and cold carcass weights. Leg fat and eye muscle depth were lower (p≤0.05) in CON versus BCM lambs. Meat whiteness (L*), redness (a*), and yellowness did not differ between lambs fed the two diets.

Conclusion: The inclusion of BCM improves lamb carcass characteristics, but does not affect lamb meat quality. Keywords: Awassi lambs, black cumin meal, carcass characteristics and meat quality.

Keywords: Awassi lambs, black cumin meal, carcass characteristics and meat quality.

How to cite this article: Obeidat BS (2021) The inclusion of black cumin meal improves the carcass characteristics of growing Awassi lambs, Veterinary World, 14(1): 237-241.

Received: 07-09-2020  Accepted: 11-12-2020     Published online: 26-01-2021

Corresponding author: Belal S. Obeidat   E-mail: bobeidat@just.edu.jo

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2021.237-241

Copyright: Obeidat, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.