Desempeño productivo y propiedades de la canal en ovinos Pelibuey y sus cruzas con Suffolk o Dorset

To assess the effect of genotype and sex on productive performance, carcass yield and tissue composition, 60 lambs (initial body weight 17.2±3 kg) were allotted to six treatments in a completely randomized design, using a 2 x 3 factorial arrangement, with 2 sexes: female and male, and 3 genotypes: Pelibuey (Pb), Pb*Suffolk (PbxS) and Pelibuey*Dorset (PbxD), having 10 experimental units per treatment. After 5±0.3 months in a feed lot, with body weight averaging 39.5±1.2 kg in females and 45.7±0.9 kg in males, to evaluate carcass and tissue composition four randomly selected animals per treatment were slaughtered. Average daily weight gain was greater in males (203±24 g d-1) than in females (147±17 g d-1). Crossbred males gained 18.2 % more body weight than Pb males while crossbreds females gained 27.8 % more than Pb (P 0.05) in both commercial and real carcass yield by sex or genotype effect. No differences (P>0.05) were observed in muscle content between genotypes, but muscle content was higher in males (62.2±1.2 %) than in females (57.3±3.1 %). No differences were detected in bone content but fat content was lower in the Pb group (12.8 %) than in crossbreds (14.3 %) (P<0-05).