Abstract
The effect of maintenance (zero-energy balance) and submaintenance (negative-energy balance) feeding, and of subsequent compensatory growth (repletion) on the quality of lambs meat was studied. It was observed that maintenance and submaintenance feeding markedly decrease the objective and subjective criteria of tenderness of meat in young lambs. The judges, opinion however, varied so far as the magnitude of reduction in tenderness was con-cerned. The juiciness and flavour of meat were not affected by nutritional stress. The first-and second-order interactions between different variables clearly supported these observations.
The difference in the ultimate pH value of muscle from lambs, reared on different nutri-tional planes, was reflected in the pH value of cooked meat. The ‘free’ and total water content tended to be high in cooked meat from underfed lambs, but the amount of ‘bound’ water was identical in meat from all lambs. The difference in the tenderness of meat from replenished and control lambs was not apparent, suggesting that underfed young lambs, following an adequate period of compensatory growth, produce meat of the same quality or only marginally different from normally grown lambs of the same age.
