Lamb producers in the Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) of the European Community appear, for different reasons, to be constrained by the economic value of the indigenous small-sized sheep breeds. The trial reported here forms part of a collaborative project whose overall aim is to improve the quality and marketability of sheep meat produced in the LFAs. The objective of this trial was to measure the growth and body composition of entire male lambs of 3 Greek dairy breeds from early weaning to 3 slaughter weights chosen to be of potential commercial interest.

In all 108 ram lambs were used with equal numbers from the 3 breeds: Karagouniko (K), Serres (S) and Boutsiko (B). The lambs were weaned at about 8 weeks of age onto one of 3 levels of concentrate allowance called H, M and L with ad libitum access to alfalfa hay. The concentrate contained 175 g crude protein and 11.0 MJ ME/kg as fed. The concentrate allowances were calculated on incremental time-based scales which were related to the ad libitum intake of each of the breeds as observed in a previous experiment. The highest allowance was intended to be at about 0.80 of the ad libitum intake previously seen. Allowance L was 1/3 and level M 2/3 of H. Lambs were housed in individual pens on sawdust. Liveweight and hay intake were recorded once per week; there were no overall refusals of concentrate between start and slaughter. Lambs were slaughtered at 23. 28 or 33 kg irrespective of breed and carcasses stored for compositional evaluation.