Abstract
This research is aimed at determining the impact of supplementing extensively reared lambs with a limited amount of flax seed enriched-concentrate on the fatty acid profile of the lamb meat (omental fat depot). A total of 96 60-day old Pramenka breed lambs (23.85±3.98 kg live body weight; 60±10 days of age; 42 males and 54 females) raised on pasture with their dams were randomly divided in three experimental groups: control (CON) or extensive rearing group, which did not receive any supplementary feed; concentrate (CC) group, receiving 300 g of a conventional commercial concentrate feed per animal daily, and concentrate-flax seed (CC-FS) group, receiving 300 g/day of the concentrate supplemented with 5% of flax seed. After 60 days of experimental period, 10 lambs were selected (5 males and 5 females) from each group and slaughtered. Omental fat samples were taken and analyzed to determine their fatty acid profile. Significant (P>0.05) differences in the fatty acid profile between CON and CC groups were small. However, enrichment of the concentrate with 5% flax seed increased the percentages of PUFA and n-3 PUFA when compared to both CON and CC groups and thus slightly improved the nutritional characteristics of the omental fat. The effect of sex on the fatty acid profile was only observed for C20:4 n-6 and C20:5 n-3 (P < 0.05).