Lamb muscle redness improved by supplementing ewe rations with selenium
Take Home Message: Supplementation with selenium throughout pregnancy will improve lamb meat quality by maintaining the redness of the muscle.
Selenium supplementation of ewes throughout pregnancy, compared with supplementation only in late pregnancy, improved meat appearance by maintaining the redness of the muscle.
“And this could have implications in prolonging meat shelf-life,” Camila Muñoz from Hillsborough’s Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute of Northern Ireland told delegates at this year’s British Society of Animal Science annual conference. “Although plane of nutrition in early and mid-pregnancy of dams had no effects on offspring meat quality,” she added.
Nutritional status in early and mid-pregnancy can affect subsequent offspring productivity. “For example, plane of nutrition in early and mid-pregnancy has been shown to have a significant effect on carcass characteristics, with male offspring of dams offered a low plane diet in early pregnancy having poorer carcass conformation and greater fat depths over the muscle L dorsi than lambs of dams offered medium or high plane diets,” said Dr Muñoz,
Her team’s latest study set out to investigate the effect of plane of nutrition and selenium supplementation of ewes in early and mid-pregnancy on the meat quality of the male offspring.
Between days 0 and 39 after synchronized mating, multi-parous ewes were allowed 60%, 100%, or 200% of requirements for maintenance. Between days 40 and 90 (mid-pregnancy) ewes were allowed either 80% or 140% of their maintenance requirement. Between days -14 and 90 post mating, ewes received Se treatments providing either no Se (Control) or 1g of Selplex®, which equalled an intake of 0.5mg Se/ewe/day.
After day 90 of gestation, all ewes were fed to meet energy and protein requirements for late pregnancy and supplemented with a standard multivitamin and mineral mix (Se content of 10mg/kg).
Male offspring were reared on a grass-based system and slaughtered at 42, 46 or 50kg live weight. Between ribs six and 12 the muscle L dorsi was removed 24 hours post-mortem for instrumental meat quality analyses.
Measurements of pH, colour, cooking loss, Warner-Bratzler shear force and sarcomere length were recorded.
“And we found that plane of nutrition in early and mid-pregnancy had no effect on any parameter of meat quality, but selenium supplementation had a significant effect on meat colour with lambs from selenium-treated ewes having increased redness values of the muscle compared with controls,” said Dr Muñoz.
“Selenium supplementation of ewes had no effects on the sarcomere length, ultimate pH, cooking loss or Warner-Bratzler shear force of male lambs.”
Presented to the British Society of Animal Science Annual Meeting, March 30 to April 1, 2009, Southport, UK.
Full details: Muñoz C, Carson AF, McCoy MA, Moss BW, Gordon AW: “Effects of plane of nutrition and selenium supplementation of ewes in early and mid pregnancy on meat quality of offspring.”
Summary (pdf) Presentation_075munoz (pdf)
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