Effect of The Shearing Use and Vitamin E to Reduce The Impact of Stress on The Measurements and Carcass Characteristics in Lambs Awassie

Abstract

This study was conducted at Animal Field, Animal Resources Department, College of Agriculture, Tikrit University for the period from 16th June 2012 up to 8th May 2013, to know the effect of shearing and Vit. E administration to reduce heat stress and to study their effect on the productive traits of Awassi lambs in the middle of Iraq. In this experiment , thirty six Awassi male lambs at the age of three months and average body weight of 22.0 kg. These animals were divided into two groups ( 18 each ), the animals in the first group were sheared, while those in the second group were kept without sheared , however, the animals in each group were randomly divided into three sub-groups according to the Vit. E administration level(0 ,200 and 400 mg), each sub-group contain 6 animals. All animals were fed on the basic diet fed animals of the Animal Resource Fields with a rate of 2.5% B.W., in addition roughages were continuously offered along the experimental period. Factorial design ( 2×3 ) of complete randomized design was used to study the effect of both factors on the studied traits. Duncan's ( 1955 ) multiple range test was used to detect the differences among different groups and sub-group mean using SAS ( 2004 ) program. The results revealed the followings:•Shearing and Vit. E administration had not significant effect on live body weight at slaughter , empty body weight hot and cold dressing percentages in spite of the positive effect of shearing and Vit. E administration for reducing the effect of stress on improving lamb performance and best level of Vit. E was 400 mg.•Rib eye muscle area, fat thickness and physical separation of contents were not significantly different between animal groups in spite of the animals those administrated with Vit. E showed lower fat deposit and higher rib eye muscle area values, this indicate that shearing and Vit. E administration could reduce the effect of stress and improve the ability of stress resistance.•No differences in the weight of internal organs observed between animal groups , also the stress had no effect on their percentage weight due to shearing and Vit. E administration.