Terminação de ovinos em confinamento e a pasto

Abstract

The objective of this work was to demonstrate a comparison between the finishing systems of sheep to pasture and in feedlot, considering the factors that affect consumption, performance, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of meat and economic viability. Brazilian sheep farming is undergoing a process of transformation, especially in the productive sector, in which the price of meat is now defined according to the quality of the product, generating the need for intensification of production by the wine-growing. The finishing of sheep made exclusively to pasture requires well-defined management strategies, because this process is subject to irregularity in the availability of forage, but a productive increase when supplementation is made. The confinement when provided with animals of high genetic potential and diets with nutritionally rich ingredients that do not limit consumption, express satisfactory yields in lambs, allowing the slaughter of young animals whose quality of meat tends to be well accepted by consumers. Factors such as pasture irrigation, land acquisition and verminosis make pasture termination more expensive. The parameters responsible for the highest costs of the confined system are the acquisition of lambs and food.