Table 7. The evaluation of the physical and qualitative characteristics of the meat of lambs fed pelleted complete diets with levels of neutral detergent fibers (NDFs)

Parameters	Dietary groups¹⁾			SEM	p-value
Parameters	Diet 1	Diet 2	Diet 3	SEM	Groups	Quadratic
pH value
At 30 min after slaughter	5.94	5.88	5.83	0.040	0.197	0.843
At 24 h after slaughter	5.78	5.79	5.78	0.024	0.919	0.685
Temperature (°C)
At 30 min after slaughter	25.74	26.10	26.14	0.340	0.655	0.701
At 24 h after slaughter	15.38	15.01	15.17	0.412	0.819	0.607
Meat color components at 30 min after slaughter
CIE L*	37.82	36.64	38.52	0.778	0.250	0.124
CIE a*	12.65	18.30	18.49	2.192	0.125	0.319
CIE b*	5.67	4.81	4.78	0.341	0.140	0.336
Meat color components at 24 h after slaughter
CIE L*	41.82^a	35.12^b	36.37^ab	1.774	0.033	0.081
CIE a*	14.76	14.85	14.43	0.444	0.788	0.646
CIE b*	10.27^b	12.93^a	12.47^a	0.484	0.001	0.051
Meat color derivatives
Color change	9.24	11.67	11.49	1.129	0.261	0.356
CIE b* to CIE a* ratio	0.70^b	0.87^a	0.86^a	0.026	0.0002	0.130
Chroma	18.00	19.70	19.09	0.585	0.140	0.123
Hue angle	34.81^b	41.00^a	40.72^a	0.942	0.0002	0.103
Meat quality properties
Cooking loss (%)	36.94^b	30.41^c	40.66^a	1.601	<0.0001	<0.0001
Water-holding capacity (%)	34.89	31.93	32.70	1.475	0.358	0.315
Myofibril fragmentation index	84.49^c	118.31^b	131.63^a	11.32	0.021	0.046
Shear force (N/cm²)	28.01^a	21.46^b	23.66^b	0.690	<0.0001	<0.0001
Texture profile analysis
Hardness (N)	10.70	10.04	8.07	0.891	0.119	0.557
Springiness ratio	0.68	0.71	0.68	0.021	0.525	0.277
Cohesiveness ratio	0.54^a	0.52^a	0.46^b	0.013	0.001	0.298
Chewiness ratio	4.11	3.92	2.79	0.395	0.059	0.341

Dietary groups consisted of pelleted complete diets with varying NDF content: Diet 1 (20.98% NDF), Diet 2 (28.23% NDF), and Diet 3 (34.82% NDF).
Superscripts represent significant differences (p<0.05) between dietary groups for each parameter within a row.