TI 01. Sheep carcass characteristics of Ideal breed lambs and their crosses with Texel breed in two environmental conditions

An experiment was carried out to evaluate the influence of the supplementation with poultry litter on the productive response of cattle receiving a low quality fibrous diet. It was located in a commercial farm at San Jose de Tiznados, Guarico State, with heifers grazing Brachiaria humidicola. Fifty eight crossbred Brahman heifers of 21/2 years were balanced for weight and distributed in two treatments, Treatment T1: grazing alone and Treatment T2: grazing plus 1 kg/day of supplement offered during three hours daily. The experiment was carried out from march to june 1995. The pasture had 4.6 % crude protein, 0.18 % calcium and 0.09 % phosphorus and the DM disappearance at 48h in nylon bags was 41.9 %. There were two periods with different consumptions of supplement. In March-April the average intake was 0.077 kg/day and in May and June the intakes were of 0.39 and 0.58 kg/day. Live weight gains (LWG) in T1 and T2 were of 0.51 and 0.189 kg/day during the first period (P.05) during the 40 days after the end of the trial. Pregnancy rate at the end of the mating season at the end of August was 96.4 and 86.1 % in T1 and T2 respectively (P>.05). The results of this experiment pointed out that the quality and quantity offered of the base diet at the start of the rainy season (May-June) were sufficient to sustain an adequate rate of conception, independent of the slight increase in LWG obtained with the supplement at the end of the dry season.