Comparison of a Plantain-Chicory Mixture with a Grass Permanent Sward on the Live Weight Gain and Meat Quality of Lambs.

Under the predicted conditions of climate change, the productivity of temperate grasslands may be affected by drought stress, especially in spring and summer. In this scenario, water-deficit-tolerant species such as plantain and chicory are interesting alternatives for use in sheep production systems. In this study, we compared a mixture of plantain and chicory herbage (PCH) with a grass-based permanent sward (GBS) on the weight gain and meat quality of lambs finished on these grasslands.

Prediction efficiency by near-infrared spectroscopy of immunoglobulin G in liquid and dried bovine colostrum samples.

The objective of this study was to compare the prediction efficiency of IgG concentration in bovine colostrum by NIRS, using liquid and dried (Dry-Extract Spectroscopy for Infrared Reflectance, DESIR) samples by transflectance and reflectance modes, respectively. Colostrum samples (157), obtained from 2 commercial Holstein dairy farms, were collected within the first hour after calving and kept at -20 °C until analysis. After thawing and homogenisation, a subsample of 500 mg of liquid colostrum was placed in an aluminium mirror transflectance cell (0·1 mm path length), in duplicate, to collect the spectrum.