Use of weaning concetrate in the feeding of suckling kids: effects on meat quality

A study was conducted to investigate the effect of a feeding supplementation with starter concentrate on “Capretto” meat production and its qualitative characteristics. To this end, 31 Girgentana kids, slaughtered at 59 days of age from two feeding groups (concentrate group (CG) and milk group (MG)) were utilised. Carcass measurements (body components, carcass joints, pelvic limb tissue composition, meat fatty acid composition and M. longissimus dorsi (LD) physical characteristics), body weight at birth, and at slaughter, were evaluated. The effect of concentrate supplementation did not influence the slaughter weight, slaughter and dissection data, tissue composition and meat chemical composition of the pelvic limb, and no differences were found for rheological characteristics of LD meat, except cohesiveness values, which were higher (P < 0.05) in the CG kids. The effect of concentrate supplementation determined a significant variation of saturated fatty acids, which resulted higher for MG kids (41.77% versus 38.43%; P≤0.05). In fact, goat milk had an unsaturated fatty acids (UFA)/saturated fatty acids (SFA) ratio that was 0.25 lower than the fatty acid composition of concentrate (0.84). Litter size (single or twin) influenced many of the parameters studied statistically, probably because of the greater body weight of the single kids.