Use of Grape Seed Flour in Feed for Lambs and Effects on Performance and Meat Quality

Production performance were measured on lambs fed with feed containing grape seed flour; weight gain, feed consumption and slaughtering parameters were recorded.

24 “Gentile di Puglia” lambs were divided into four homogeneous groups as regards weight; from the age of 50 days they were fed for a further 63 days on complete feeds in pellet form. The feeds contained 0, 10, 20 or 30% grape seed flour.

The feeds containing this by-product gave productive responses comparable to, or even better than, those obtained without by-product. A content of 10% grape seed meal in the feed produced weight gains and final live weights greater (P<0.05) than those produced by the control feed (261 g/d vs. 222 g/d and 34.016 kg vs. 31.533 kg). The use of up to 20% grape seed meal gave feed conversion indexes similar to those obtained using the control feed. Slaughtering data, pH measurements, dissection data and meat chemical composition were not influenced by the type of feed.

Interesting findings were obtained from the fatty acid composition, which showed that increasing levels of inclusion of grape seed flour in the feed decreased saturated fatty acids, increased unsaturated fatty acids and improved dietary characteristics of the meat with the best indices of atherogeniticy and thrombogenicity.