126 Effects of Tall Fescue Seeds and Quercetin on the Meat Quality of Finishing Lambs

Abstract

Abstract Tall fescue is a major cool-season grass for grazing livestock in North America. However, it is typically infected with endophyte fungus, and the intake of the infected tall fescue was toxic to ruminant animals. Quercetin is one of the natural flavonoids that could increase the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant capacity of an animal. This experiment aims to investigate the effects of infected tall fescue seeds on the carcass characteristics and meat quality of finishing lambs, and also to determine the mitigation effect of quercetin on the toxicity of tall fescue seeds. A total number of 24 lambs were randomly assigned to four groups: 1) Control group (C, n = 6), tall fescue seed group (E+Q-, n = 6, feed with tall fescue seed infected with alkaloid endophyte), tall fescue seed, and quercetin group (E+Q+, n = 6, feed with tall fescue seed infected with alkaloid endophyte), and quercetin group (E-Q+, n = 6, feed with quercetin). All the groups were fed ad libitum for 42 d. The longissimus dorsi muscle of each lamb was collected to analyze the meat quality parameters. The results show that the tall fescue seed decreased the final body weight and the hot carcass weight of finishing lambs (P < 0.05). Intake of tall fescue seed with quercetin increased the meat color parameters (L*, a*, b*, C, and h) significantly (P < 0.05). The tall fescue decreased the intramuscular fat content in the longissimus dorsi muscle and also modulated the fatty acids composition (P < 0.05). In conclusion, infected tall fescue negatively affected the carcass characteristics and intramuscular fat deposition of finishing lambs. However, the quercetin didn’t mitigate the influence of tall fescue seeds on carcass characteristics but increased the meat color characteristics.