Effects of feeding corn silage instead of peanut hay on the growth performance, meat quality and expression of growth-related genes in fattening lambs Yanga L., Zang S.23a, Chen X.12a*, Yao X., Sun H.2, Liu Y.2, Dun W.3 Department of Animal Science, College of Life Sciences and Food Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan, 056038, China 1College of Animal Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding071000, China 2Hebei Institute of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Baoding, 071000, China 3College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, 625014, China *Corresponding author: 342317981@qq.com (X. Chen)
aThese authors contributed equally to this work. Online published on 19 October, 2021. Abstract This study aimed to investigate the effects of feeding maize silage instead of subtotal peanut hay on the growth performance, meat quality, and expression of growth-related genes in fattening lambs. Forty hybrid male lambs (average 20.87±2.78 kg BW) were randomly divided into two equal groups (each group consisting of four replicates of five lambs) according to body weight. The lambs were fed either of the two iso-energetic and iso-nitrogenous diets, i.e., peanut hay control diet (CON) and an experimental diet with 72.67% of peanut hay replaced by corn silage (EXP). After the fattening experiment of 91 d, the growth performance, meat quality, and expression of growth-related genes including growth hormone (GH) receptor (GHR), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R), myostatin (MSTN), frizzled-related protein (FRZB), and mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM), were analyzed. The results showed that diet had no effect (P>0.05) on the GH concentration, total weight gain, average daily gain, hot dressing percentage, loin eye area, tissue depth, pH, cooking loss, shear force, water holding capacity and meat colour, but enhanced (P<0.05) the carcass weight and marbling score. Furthermore, dietary treatment inhibited (P<0.05) the expression of GHR mRNA in the heart and IGF-1R mRNA in the longissimus dorsi but increased (P<0.05) the expression of MSTN mRNA in the skin, IGF-1 mRNA in the biceps femoris, and IGF-1R mRNA in the biceps femoris. This data indicated that feeding maize silage replacing 72.67% peanut hay improved the carcass weight and marbling score, mediated, possibly through regulating the expression of IGF-1 in the biceps femoris and IGF-1R in the biceps femoris and longissimus dorsi muscles. Top Keywords Corn silage, Growth-related genes, Lamb, Meat quality, Peanut hay. Top |