TDK conference 2013

The Hortobágyi Racka sheep is the still preserved representative of the ancient triplepurpose Hungarian sheep which is used for producing milk, meat and wool. The aim of this investigation is to contribute to the more versatile exploration of this native breed’s meat producing abilities with new knowledge. This is justified by the fact that the main part of the income comes from the meat sale.

We took weaned ram lambs and wethers in both colour variants into the fattening experiment. The different nutrition conditions were represented by a broad feeding scale from grazing upto intensive pellet fattening. We collected data of body weight, body size and of fodder loss at the experiment’s locations. The fodder samples were analysed at nutrition laboratory. The data of fattening, fodder utilization and of body size were processed by an individual animal model taking the impact of the environment and of the pedigree into consideration.

The ram lambs which were fed with just pellets or mostly with pellets grew faster than the grazing wethers and those ram lambs which were fed with hay in a big amount. Nevertheless, this latest group took up the most volume of dry matter, crude protein and the net energy for 1 kg body growth. The ram lambs which were fed on bigger amount of pellets and on some hay had more intensive growth and size development than the lambs which were fed with some triticale and bigger amount of hay.

There were no differences between the colour variants of Rackas even though they are bred separately for the last decades. The meat producing ability of the native breeds can be exploited with a more reasonable use of the pellets and hay combination. However, the subjective opinion of e.g. the length of fattening, the body composition, and the meat quality remains a major role in the decision of the fattening mode.