This study was conducted at the College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Baghdad, to find out the effect of adding Nano-bentonite on the rations of lambs on the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of their carcasses. Five groups were placed in single cages and fed on five different rations made of concentrated and rough feeds, which is hay alfalfa. The first treatment (T1) represents lambs feeding without addition, while in the second treatment (T2), the lambs were fed with an addition of 2% natural bentonite/kg concentrated feed. Furthermore, the lambs were fed with adding 4% natural bentonite/kg concentrated feed in the third treatment (T3), the fourth treatment (T4) represents lambs feeding with adding 2 g Nano-bentonite / head per day, and in the fifth treatment (T5), the lambs were fed by adding 4 g Nano-bentonite / head per day. Lambs were subjected to a similar diet throughout the entire period of the experiment at 120 days, where the animal was fed on a concentrated and rough diet by 3 % of live body weight. Moreover, live body weight was recorded weekly to measure the average daily weight gain and total gain, which leads to final body weight at the end of the experiment. All lambs were slaughtered, and carcasses were chilled at 2 ℃ for 24 hours, after that, several measurements were taken in including Carcass characteristics, physical composition, muscle distribution, and bones as well as fat deposition patterns in carcass and animal body, and some chemical characteristics. The study results showed that the T5 treatment was superior (p
Key words: Nano Bentonite, Carcass Characteristics, Awassi Lambs
|