Eight Döhne Merino rams were used to quantify apparent absorption, distribution to tissues, and excretion of dietary melamine in sheep. Two batches of concentrate pellets were made; one (CON) contained corn gluten meal with no detectable melamine and the other (MEL) contained corn gluten meal that was previously found to be highly contaminated with melamine at 15,117 mg/kg. The MEL pellets contained 1,149 mg/kg of melamine. During a 10-d adaptation period, all the animals received a forage-based diet supplemented with 600 g/d of the CON pellets. This was followed by an 8-d collection period during which 6 of the animals received MEL pellets and 2 received CON pellets. Melamine intake of sheep that received MEL pellets was 0.69 g/d. Blood samples were taken before first ingestion of MEL pellets on d 1 and again on d 3, 6, and 8 of the collection period for melamine and serum creatinine analyses. Feces and urine were collected quantitatively over the 8 d for proximate and melamine analyses. All the animals were slaughtered at the end of the trial, and samples of the LM, liver, kidneys, and abdominal fat were taken for melamine analysis. Data of the 2 sheep that received CON pellets for the duration of the trial confirmed that no melamine was detected in any of the samples, and no statistical analyses were performed on these data. The apparent digestibility or efficiency of absorption of ingested melamine was 76.7%. Melamine was detected in the urine, blood, muscle (LM), and fat tissue of all the sheep that received MEL pellets. Serum melamine concentrations reached 5.4 mg/kg on d 8 of the collection period, and the meat (LM) contained 9.6 mg/kg of melamine. Calculations on the partitioning of ingested melamine suggested that urine is the major excretion route accounting for 53.2%, whereas feces accounted for 23.3% of ingested melamine. Approximately 3.5% of the ingested melamine was detected in muscle. It was concluded that ingested melamine is highly absorbable from the small intestine and that a pathway exists for the distribution of dietary melamine to meat.

________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract β-adrenergic agonists are commonly used in livestock production to enhance meat production and decrease the fat content of the body. β-adrenergic agonists normally improve growth performance. Recent increases in meat prices and the change in consumer preference towards leaner meat have resulted in more lamb producers opting to finish leaner mutton/lamb on farms in a feedlot system. The aim of this trial was to determine the effect of dietary energy, as well as the inclusion of a β-antagonist, on the meat quality of feedlot lambs. South African Mutton Merino lambs (108) of different sexes (rams and ewes) were weaned at 120 days of age and were randomly divided into six groups (18 lambs per group). The treatment consisted of three different dietary energy levels (high 12.7 MJ ME/kg feed, medium 12.0 MJ ME/kg feed and low 11.3 MJ ME/kg feed) with either the inclusion of a β-adrenergic agonist (zilpaterol hydrochloride) at 8.4 g/ton or not. Data were analysed according to a 3 (dietary energy) x 2 (inclusion of a stimulant) x 2 (sex) factorial analysis. No interaction occurred between treatments and the data were presented as the effect of dietary energy level, the inclusion of a stimulant and sex on proximate components, fat thickness and the tenderness of the meat. The factors β-adrenergic agonists and dietary energy level had no effect on the proximate components, fat thickness or the tenderness of the meat. The ewe lambs' 9-11 th rib-cut had a significantly higher fat content than the ram lambs (27.9% vs. 23.1%, respectively). Meat from ram lambs was less tender (63.60N) compared to that from ewe lambs (57.82N). Neither the inclusion of the β-adrenergic agonist (59.8N vs. 61.9N) nor the dietary energy level (59.3N vs. 63.5N vs. 59.3N) had an effect on the tenderness of meat from lambs in this study. ________________________________________________________________________________

A study was conducted to determine whether silage can be used as an ingredient in the finishing rations of Merino lambs. One of the concerns regarding the use of silage as the main ingredient of a sheep feed is its high moisture and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) content and relatively poor protein value. Forty lambs, in a four-way completely randomized block design, were used in a 60-day finishing study. The diets consisted of a control with no silage and three diets containing, on a dry matter (DM) basis 20%, 50% or 70% maize silage. With the exception of fibre (NDF and acid detergent fibre), all diets were formulated on an iso-nutrient level. Dry matter intake (DMI) decreased as the silage inclusion increased. This resulted in significant differences between the cumulative intake of the low and the high silage diets. The 20% and 50% silage diets resulted in higher dressing percentage than the control and 70% silage diet. It was concluded that silage can be successfully incorporated into sheep diets and that optimal inclusion levels need to be quantified within high specification feedlot diets.

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There is a need for a better understanding of the mode-of-action of exogenous fibrolytic enzymes (EFE) used as additives in ruminant feeds. Four forages, treated with EFE, were evaluated in vitro and histologically, in an attempt to determine the effect of EFE on tissue degradation. Weeping love grass, kikuyu leaf material, lucerne and wheat straw stem material were histologically evaluated. Simultaneously, milled samples were incubated in the rumen fluid inoculated media for the determination of in vitro digestibility. The main focus, however, was a quantitative assessment of the degradation of the plant tissue at histological level over a 24 h incubation period. Degradation of cell wall components were quantified using the image analysis software. After 12 h of incubation, cell walls of the metaxylem of kikuyu and weeping love grass leaf material were thinner for the EFE treatment than for the control treatment. Treatment also resulted in a significant thinning effect of the cell walls of kikuyu phloem (12 h) and the adaxial epidermis (24 h). The abaxial epidermis at 12 h was thinner for weeping love grass due to EFE treatment. For stem material, a thinning of the epidermis of EFE treated lucerne was observed. Histological findings were concomitant with higher in vitro digestibilities of EFE treated lucerne and kikuyu. It was concluded that image analysis can be useful to quantify changes in cell wall due to the treatment of forages with EFE. There was a definite, subtle thinning effect of EFE on cell wall thickness of plant material which could be indicative of the mode-of-action of EFE.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________