replacing cereal grains with dried citrus pulp in crossbred zell-afshari fattening male lambs: effects on growth performance, internal organs, meat oxidative stability, and blood metabolites

The use of low cost alternative feedstuff sources such as citrus pulp for animal husbandry , may result in improved performance and animal production. this study aimed to investigate the impact of different levels of dried citrus pulp (dcp) on the productive performance ,carcass , meat quality and blood biochemical parameters in fattening male lambs. sixteen crossbred zell-afshari lambs (28±1.0 kg body weight) were randomly assigned to one of four groups, in a completely randomized design over 75 days. the dietary treatments were a control diet and a control diet supplemented with 10, 20, or 30% of dcp. the lambs fed with a 30% dcp diet exhibited increased feed intake, moreover, these lambs had higher fcr than the control groups (p <0.05), whereas the fcr was similar in the other treatment groups.(p <0.05). in terms of carcass traits, the inclusion of dcp in the diets of lambs compared to the control group led to a decrease in the weight of abdominal fat (p <0.05). in comparison with the control group, the lambs receiving 10, 20, or 30% dcp in their diets had decreased linearly blood peroxide and thiobarbituric acid (tba) indices, while their meat ash concentration had increased linearly(p <0.05). in contrast, the inclusion of dcp in the diets of lambs had no significant effects on serum biochemistry and liver enzyme activity. in conclusion, replacing cereal grains with 10% or 20% dcp demonstrated beneficial effects on some carcass traits and meat oxidative stability in zell-afshari fattening male lambs.