MACIEZ DA CARNE E COMPOSIÇÃO TECIDUAL DA PERNA DE CABRITOS ALIMENTADOS COM VARIEDADES DE PALMA FORRAGEIRA RESISTENTE A COCHONILHA DO CARMIM (Opuntia fícus)

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the tissue composition, color, cooking losses and SPRD goat shearing force fed three varieties of cactus. They were used 40 left legs 40 goats without defined breed (SPRD), castrated, with average initial weight of 15 kg, completed at the Experimental Station of São João do Cariri. The experimental design was completely randomized, with four treatments (control diet, elephant ear cactus, baiana cactus and miúda cactus) and 10 repetitions, totaling 40 installments. The animals were slaughtered to obtain the left legs, which were dissected to determine the tissue composition, the obtained semimembranosus muscles were used for analyzes of cooking losses and shear. There was significant difference in variety of elephant ear cactus on the intermuscular fat (0.031 ± 0.017) compared to the control diet (0.048 ± 0.011), on other tissues (0.050 ± 0.010 and 0.066 ± 0.006) and bone percentage (25 45 ± 4.26 and 21.23 ± 2.10). There was no significant difference between treatments on the color, cooking losses and shear force. Conclude that the varieties of cactus not interfere the quality of the tissue constituents leg, color, juiciness and tenderness of the meat.