A comparison of different breeds and crosses from the suckler herd 2. Carcass characteristics

Abstract

A comparison was made of the carcass characteristics of purebred Galloway, Luing and Welsh Black steers, and crossbred steers out of Blue-Grey and Hereford × Friesian dams by Aberdeen-Angus, Charolais, Devon, Hereford, Limousin, Lincoln Red, Simmental, South Devon and Sussex sires, in winter and summer fattening systems. A total of 1430 cattle were involved and the trial extended over 6 years.The cattle were slaughtered when their fatness was estimated, using the Scanogram ultrasonic machine, to be in fat class 3L of the Meat and Livestock Commission Beef Carcase Classification Scheme. Carcasses were evaluated using a standardized commercial cutting technique.The data for crossbred and purebred cattle were analysed separately within the fattening system using leastsquares models, which included effects for year, sire breed and dam breed, and with regression on age at the beginning of the trial and carcass subcutaneous fat concentration estimated by visual appraisal.Limousin and Charolais crosses killed out best. Their carcass weights were, on average, 20g/kg live weight heavier than those of Aberdeen-Angus, Devon, Hereford and Lincoln Red crosses. There was a range of 20 to 30 g/kg carcass weight between sire breeds in carcass saleable meat yield: the highest values were recorded for the Limousin crosses (evaluated on winter fattening only) followed by Charolais and Aberdeen-Angus crosses; Lincoln Red crosses had the lowest values among the crossbreds and Luing cattle among the purebreds. These differences were more a reflexion of differences in fat trim than of differences in meat to bone ratio.Continental sire breeds had significantly more of their total saleable meat in the higher-priced cuts (P<0·05), although the range between sire breeds was only 15 g/kg.

Intake, live animal scores/measurements and carcass composition and value of late-maturing beef and dairy breeds

“…The similar carcass weight for SM and BB was also reported by Grundy et al (2000). The lower carcass conformation score in SM than CH agrees with the finding of Kempster et al (1982b) who compared Charolais with Simmental steers from a suckler herd. Grundy et al (2000) also found that Simmental× Friesian had a lower conformation score than Belgian Blue × Friesian.…”

“…Likewise, Kempster et al (1982b) also reported a lower carcass meat proportion in Simmental compared to Charolais and Limousin steers. The lowest carcass meat and greatest carcass bone proportions in Simmental support the findings of Piedrafita et al (2003) who reported negative correlations between carcass meat and bone proportions.…”

“…Although breeds for beef production were evaluated in the past Kempster et al, 1982b;Keane, 1994;Hardy and Fisher, 1996) it is reasonable to assume that considering genetic improvement within beef breeds and particularly in dairy breeds, there is a need to re-examine differences between breeds across primary input and output traits. Furthermore, many contemporary breed comparison studies were confined to progeny from the dairy herd (Keane, 1994;McGee et al, 2005McGee et al, , 2007Kirkland et al, 2007;Keane and Drennan, 2008) with a minority of studies comparing sire breeds from nondairy dams.…”

Distribution of tissues in carcasses at the same proportion of total fat in Portuguese cattle breeds

“…The minimum difference was in the fore shin (4 g·kg -1 between ME and MI) and the maximum difference was in the thin flank (9 g·kg -1 between AL and MO). These results agree with those from many other studies [1,2,6,7,11,13,14,[16][17][18] in which the differences between breeds in the proportion of muscle in each joint, even when statistically significant, are commercially unimportant. According to Berg and Butterfield [4,5] functional demands account for the narrow range of variation in this distribution of muscle.…”

Amino acid composition of pig meat in relation to live weight and sex

“…According to Kempster et al (1982) in the body and body cavities of animals there is a very variable quantity of fat in the form of intracellular, intercellular and extracellular fat. Gonzalez et al (2001), Tibau et al (2002) and Zullo et al (2003) dealt with the chemical composition of pig meat in relation to slaughter weight, sex and genotype.…”