REGULAR ARTICLES Assessing carcass and meat characteristics of Damara, Dorper and Australian Merino lambs under restricted feeding André M. Almeida & Tanya Kilminster & Tim Scanlon & Susana S. Araújo & John Milton & Chris Oldham & Johan C. Greeff Accepted: 10 January 2013 / Published online: 24 January 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract Seasonal weight loss (SWL) is the most pressing constraint in ruminant production systems in tropical cli- mates. SWL is controlled using supplementation, which is costly and difficult to implement in extensive systems, or using breeds adapted to tropical hot dry climates, like the Damara and Dorper. Albeit 15 years in Australia, little is known on how these sheep compare to Australian Merino. Here, the responses of the Damara, Dorper and Merino breeds to nutritional stress were compared. Seventy-two 6- month-old ram lambs, 24 from each breed, were allocated to growth (gaining 100 g/day) or restricted diets (losing 100 g/day, 85 % of maintenance needs). Animals were weighed and carcass and meat characteristics determined. Results point out to the existence of important differences between the three genotypes, in particular between the Merino and the Southern African breeds. Additionally, Merino ram lambs seem to have been more influenced by SWL than the other two, with consequences on meat characteristics. Keywords Merino . Dorper . Damara . Seasonal weight loss . Carcass characteristics . Meat traits Introduction The sheep grazing system in the tropics face an extreme seasonal fluctuation in pasture quantity and quality. In fact, during the dry season, green pastures comprise a mix of annual grasses and legumes, with quality depending on rainfall and temperature. At the onset of the dry season, pasture senescence causes a significant decrease in the di- gestibility of the pasture resulting in seasonal weight loss (SWL). SWL is the major constraint to animal production in tropical dry arid regions (Almeida et al. 2006). In Australia, this period is termed the autumn feed gap, and supplemen- tary feeding has to be implemented. This is expensive and difficult to implement. To cope with this problem, the use of breeds able to withstand SWL is often suggested. In Australia, sheep production is based on wool produc- tion using the Merino, a breed introduced in the nineteenth century (Almeida 2011). With declines in wool prices, increases in meat prices, competition from cropping and mulesing ban (Almeida 2011), there has been an increased interest in alternative sheep breeds adapted to SWL. Accordingly, the Dorper and the Damara are becoming increasingly popular (Almeida 2011). The Damara is a fat-tailed hair breed from Southern Africa imported to Australia since the 1990s to produce meat in dry environments. For more information, Almeida (2011) provides more information on the Damara and other fat-tailed sheep breeds from Southern Africa. The Dorper is a composite hair meat breed developed in South Africa combining the hardiness of the Blackhead Persian with the carcass conformation of the Dorset Horn (Cloete et al. 2000). Dorpers are now present in semi-arid tropical envi- ronments worldwide. A. M. Almeida (*) : S. S. Araújo Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, CVZ-FMV, Av. Un. Técnica, 1300-477 Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: dealmeyda@hotmail.com T. Kilminster : T. Scanlon : C. Oldham : J. C. Greeff DAFWA—Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia J. Milton University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia Trop Anim Health Prod (2013) 45:1305–1311 DOI 10.1007/s11250-013-0361-z