Effect of Diet Supplementation with Quinoa Seed and/or Linseed on Immune Response, Productivity and Meat Quality in Merinos Derived Lambs

Abstract

Simple SummaryStressful conditions can play an important role in affecting welfare, productive performances and meat quality of lambs. The relation between nutrition and immune response has been investigated in the livestock production, particularly in dairy cattle and sheep. Due to costs related to animal feed it is useful to evaluate the proper feeding strategy supplementation for improving animal welfare and lamb meat quality. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of supplementation with linseed, quinoa seed and their combination on metabolic profile, immune system, and cortisol response in blood and on meat quality of merinos derived lambs. Both linseed and quinoa supplementation enhanced the immune responses of lambs, and showed a hypo cholesterol effect on blood of lambs. Moreover, lambs supplemented with linseed resulted in the lowest level of cortisol secretion during the loading test demonstrating the link between stress and the immune system. In addition, data from the present experiment highlighted that linseed supplementation in lambs enhance meat quality producing a better meat tenderness. These findings should be considered for development of specific strategies aimed at improving the quality of meat and sustaining lambs’ welfare.AbstractIn the last years several studies have investigated the strong relation between nutrition and immune response in the livestock production, particularly in dairy cattle and sheep. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of supplementation based on linseed, quinoa seeds and their combination on welfare, productivity and quality of meat from merinos derived lambs. 32 weaned lambs were divided into 4 experimental groups: quinoa (Q), linseed (LS) and combination of quinoa and linseed (LS + Q) that received the respective supplementation and control group (C) without supplementation. Lambs from all supplemented groups showed lower plasma urea, creatinine and cholesterol than control. Both linseed and quinoa supplementation enhanced the cell-mediated immune responses of lambs, furthermore, linseed supplementation resulted in the lowest level of cortisol secretion after handling, loading and transport. Meat from lambs supplemented with linseed and LS + Q showed the highest pH, at 1 and 3 h post-mortem, while, meat from all supplemented groups was more tender than meat from control. Results indicated that linseed and quinoa seeds supplementation can help the animal to cope with stressful events due to the close link between stress responses and the immune system and for improving meat quality in terms of better tenderness.

Dietary Linseed Supplementation Improves Meat Quality of Sheep by Altering Muscle Fiber Characteristics and Antioxidative Capacity

“…For example, A Guerrero, C Sañudo, MM Campo, JL Olleta, E Muela, RMG Macedo and FAF Macedo [26] reported that a diet supplemented with 10% linseed and fattening for either 30 or 50 d could improve the fatty acid composition, productive, carcass characteristics and meat quality of cull ewes. According to R Marino, M Caroprese, G Annicchiarico, F Ciampi, MG Ciliberti, Ad Malva, A Santillo, A Sevi and M Albenzio [4], dietary linseed supplementation improved the meat tenderness and agrees with our current observations, which showed that dietary supplementation with linseed exhibited a lower shear force. The pH of muscle after slaughter is an important indicator of glycolytic activity; and was the basis for identifying potential PSE and DFD.…”

“…This difference in pH may account for the difference in muscle ber composition between the two groups since muscle ber type is related to the ultimate pH [28,29]. In the case of meat color, supplementation with linseed only reduced L* values, which is contrary to previous [4,30].…”

“…Therefore, improving the meat quality of feed lots sheep has attracted worldwide attention. Previous research has reported that diet nutrition had an effect on meat quality of sheep [3][4][5][6].…”

Protein hunger of the feed sector: the alternatives offered by the plant world

“…Also, quinoa seeds contain important physiological functionalities, among which anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory activities. Particularly, Marino et al (2018) found that quinoa seeds supplementation can help lamb to cope with stressful events due to the close link between stress responses and the immune system and for improving meat tenderness. Under an agro-ecological perspective, another strength point is that the use of protein crops has also environmental advantages because they fix nitrogen in soils reducing the use of fertiliser.…”

Effects of Diets Containing Finger Millet Straw and Corn Straw on Growth Performance, Plasma Metabolites, Immune Capacity, and Carcass Traits in Fattening Lambs

“…The capacity of the immune system is vital for health during fattening, of which the level not only affects the daily weight gain but also the disease incidence. In the last few years, several studies have investigated the strong relation between nutrition and immune response in livestock production, particularly in dairy cows [ 29 , 30 , 31 ] and sheep [ 32 , 33 ]. We measured an index of the immune system for appreciating the mixture diets with the same nutrition concentration.…”