DOSING IN THREE LEVELS OF APRICOT SEED OIL AND ITS AFFECTS ON SOME FRESH AND FROZEN SHEEP MEAT TRAITS

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of different levels of apricot seed oil on some production traits, some physical and biochemical blood parameters, and liver tissue changes in sheep. The experiment was conducted in the animal production field of the College of Agriculture - Tikrit University, for the period from 21/8/2023 until 3/12/2023. Fifteen Awassi lambs were used in this experiment, their ages ranged between 4-5 months, with an average starting weight of (24.42 ± 0.2) kg. The lambs were divided into three groups (five lambs for each group) and their average weights were close (24.34, 24.40, 24.54) kg, and the treatments were randomly distributed. On three treatments, a mass feeding system was adopted, and on one feed of concentrated feed (ready feed for fattening sheep from the Erbil Feed Factory) at a rate of 3% of the animal’s live weight, it was weighed every beginning of the week and the amount of feed was determined according to the new weight for each treatment on the basis of the average weight of the animals. Treatment, with the addition of (150) g/day/load of wheat hay. The second and third treatment animals were dosed with apricot kernel oil orally at rates of (0.0015 and 0.0020) % of the animal’s live weight, respectively.The results of the study indicated the following: -1- Dosing (0.0015) % of apricot oil led to a significant increase (P≤0.05) in the percentage of (white blood cell neutrophils, average corpuscular volume, corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, and corpuscular hemoglobin concentration rate). While dosing (0.0020) % of apricot oil led to a significant increase (P≤0.05) in the percentage (white blood cell rate, red blood cell count, red blood cell size), and there were no significant differences in the rest of the physical blood characteristics for all treatments.