The objective of this work was to compare the performance and carcass characteristics of 14 lambs, being four of the Texel, five of the Suffolk and five cross Texel x Suffolk breeds. The lambs were weaned at 64 days of age in average, and finished in feedlot, until slaughtering with average age of 128 days. From birth to weaning, dams were maintained in native pasture and received a concentrated supplementation at a 1% ratio of live weight and lambs had access to a concentrated supplementation in the form of creep-feeding at a 1.5% ratio of the live weight. The concentrated food used in the supplementation of the sheep and the lambs contained 21% of crude protein (CP), 70% of total digestible nutrients (TDN), 2% of calcium (Ca) and 0.4% of phosphorus (P). After weaning, lambs started to receive a composed diet of hay made of Tifton-85 (Cynodon dactylon) + concentrate, at a 40:60 ratio in the dry matter (DM), which contained 15.1% of CP, 60.8% of TDN, 1.4% of Ca and 0.3% of P. The slaughter weight was lower (P<0.05) for the Texel purebred lambs when compared to Suffolk purebred lambs and Texel x Suffolk crossbred lambs. The Texel x Suffolk crossbred lambs had higher birth to slaughtering weight daily gain (P<0.05) when compared to Texel purebred lambs. The Texel x Suffolk crossbred lambs presented a higher dry matter intake (P<0.01) when compared to the Suffolk and Texel lambs, there were no differences between the pure breeds for this variable. Statistical differences were not observed for the variable hot carcass weight, hot carcass dressing, hindquarter, shoulder and ribs percentages. However, neck percentage was lower (P<0.05) in the Texel x Suffolk crossbred was verified when compared with the Suffolk purebred lambs.
sheep; feedlot; creep-feeding; meat; breed
