This study was intended to determine the effect of adding flax seeds to a concentrate for lamb fattening on the fatty acid composition of the omental fat depot in Pramenka lambs reared indoors. A total of 63 lambs (10±3 kg of live body weight, 30±7 days of age, 30 males and 33 females) were used. They were divided into two groups: a control (CON) fed on hay, ewe's milk, and a 300-g daily ration of a commercial concentrate, and an experimental group (FS) fed on hay, ewe's milk and 300 g/day of the concentrate enriched with 5% of flax seeds. After a 60-day fattening period for each group, 10 lambs (5 males and 5 females) were selected and omental fat samples were analysed for fatty acid composition. Highly significant differences (p⟨0.001) were found between CON and FS in α-linolenic acid, the sum of n-3 fatty acids, and the ratio n-6/n-3 fatty acids. The effect of sex on the fatty acid content in the fat depot was only significant for C20:0 fatty acid (p⟨0.05).
Keywords: fat depot; flax seed; lamb nutrition; lamb quality; n-3 fatty acid.
Copyright© by the Polish Academy of Sciences.