Growth performance, carcase characteristics and meat quality of crossbred bulls and heifers from double-muscled Belgian Blue sires and Brown Swiss, Simmental and Rendena dams

Raising double-muscled breed cattle and their crossbreds in the tropics: insight from growth models

Background and Aim

In tropical conditions, modeling the predictive parameters of live weight, including those at birth, pre-weaning, post-weaning, finishing, and maturing, and the average daily gain, is challenging. The heat load significantly influences the growth rate and final mature weights in the tropics. The study compared the growth rates of Kedah-Kelantan (KK), Brahman (BRAH), and Belgian Blue (BB) crossbred calves.

Materials and Methods

The study conducted growth analysis using the non-linear regression growth models as it approximates the sex, breed, and growth physiology changes in beef cattle. It is supported by the utility of the most common growth functions (Brody, Logistic, von Bertalanffy, and Richard's model) in normal-muscled tropical breeds and double-muscled crossbred beef cattle in the tropics.

Results

The BB crossbreds outperformed the KK and BRAH breeds by 50%-100% in live weight gains under tropical conditions. The crossbreds display the double-muscled effect and highlight the advantages of heterosis, making them suitable for upgrading local herds. The study's findings on the growth characteristics of BB crossbred cattle were best described by the von Bertalanffy growth model, which had a high coefficient of determination (R2 > 0.8) and yielded estimated mature weights of 527.5 kg for males and 518.5 kg for females.

Conclusion

According to results, raising BB crossbreds in the tropics as a solution to ensure a sustainable beef supply could yield significant growth and economic benefits.

Beef-on-dairy: Meat quality of veal and prediction of intramuscular fat using the Q-FOM™ Beef camera at the 5th-6th thoracic vertebra

This study aims to describe the meat quality of young Holstein (HOL) beef-on-dairy heifers and bulls sired by Angus (ANG, n = 109), Charolais (CHA, n = 101) and Danish Blue (DBL, n = 127), and to investigate the performance of the handheld vision-based Q-FOM™ Beef camera in predicting the intramuscular fat concentration (IMF%) in M. longissimus thoracis from carcasses quartered at the 5th-6th thoracic vertebra. The results showed significant differences between crossbreeds and sexes on carcass characteristics and meat quality. DBL × HOL had the highest EUROP conformation scores, whereas ANG × HOL had darker meat with higher IMF% (3.52%) compared to CHA × HOL (2.99%) and DBL × HOL (2.51%). Bulls had higher EUROP conformation scores than heifers, and heifers had higher IMF% (3.70%) than bulls (2.31%). These findings indicate the potential for producing high-quality meat from beef-on-dairy heifers and ANG bulls. The IMF% prediction model for Q-FOM performed well with R2 = 0.91 and root mean squared error of cross validation, RMSECV = 1.33%. The performance of the prediction model on the beef-on-dairy veal subsample ranging from 0.9 to 7.4% IMF had lower accuracy (R2 = 0.48) and the prediction error (RMSEveal) was 1.00%. When grouping beef-on-dairy veal carcasses into three IMF% classes (2.5% IMF bins), 62.6% of the carcasses were accurately predicted. Furthermore, Q-FOM IMF% predictions and chemically determined IMF% were similar for each combination of sex and crossbreed, revealing a potential of Q-FOM IMF% predictions to be used in breeding, when aiming for higher meat quality.

Fatty acid profilies and some meat quality traits at different slaughter weights of Brown Swiss bulls

This research was done to detect some meat quality traits and tissue fatty acid combination of the longissimus dorsi thoracis (LT) muscle of Brown Swiss bulls at the different slaughter weights (SW). The animal material of the study comprised 20 Brown Swiss bulls. In the study, Brown Swiss bulls were divided into two groups according to their SW as low (LSW (n = 10); 431-503 kg) and high (HSW (n = 10); 504-583 kg). In the study, the LSW group showed the lowest final pH value (pH_F) (5.44) (P < 0.05). As the SW increase, the L* (lightness) value decreased in the LT muscle of Brown Swiss bulls (P > 0.05). In the research, the differences observed between the SW groups considering a* (redness) and C (chroma) values were found significant (P < 0.05). LT muscle water holding capacity (PL) decreased (P < 0.01) with increasing slaughter weight. In the study, the differences observed between SW groups in terms of drip losses (DL) after 3-day (DRP3) and 7-day (DRP7) storages and cooking losses (CL) determined were found insignificant (P > 0.05). Freeze-thaw loss (FL) and ether extract (PEE) were found 4.35% and 1.01% higher, respectively, in the HSW group than the LSW group (P < 0.05). Cholesterol content was determined as 66.15 and 70.68 mg 100 g^-1 meat in LSW and HSW groups, respectively. The ratios of n-6/n-3 (P < 0.05) and PUFA/SFA (P > 0.05) in the LT muscle decreased with the increase of SW. As a result, when LSW and HSW slaughter weight groups were evaluated considering the water losses causing financial losses in meat and fatty acids having beneficial effects on human health, it was seen that the LSW group came to the fore.

Purebreeding with sexed semen and crossbreeding with semen from double-muscled sires to improve beef production from dairy herds: Live and slaughter performances of crossbred calves

The use of sexed semen to produce purebred replacement heifers allows a large proportion of dairy cows to be mated to beef sires, and quantitative and qualitative improvements to be made to beef production from dairy herds. The major dairy and beef breeds are undergoing rapid genetic improvement as a result of more efficient selection methods, prompting a need to evaluate the meat production of crossbred beef × dairy cattle produced using current genetics. As part of a large project involving 125 commercial dairy farms, we evaluated the combined use of purebreeding with sexed semen and crossbreeding with semen from beef sires, particularly double-muscled breeds. A survey of 1,530 crossbred calves revealed that, whereas purebred dairy calves are destined almost exclusively for veal production, beef × dairy crossbred calves are also destined for beef production after fattening on either the dairy farm of birth or by specialized fatteners. In veal production, compared with Belgian Blue-sired calves (taken as the reference), double-muscled INRA 95-sired calves had a lighter slaughter weight (303 vs. 346 kg), but a greater dressing percent (62.3 vs. 58.4%). Limousin (also known as Limousine)-sired calves had a smaller average daily gain (1.26 vs. 1.34 kg/d), and lighter slaughter (314 vs. 346 kg) and carcass weights (182 vs. 201 kg). Last, Simmental-sired calves had a similar growth rate, but lighter carcass weight (177 vs. 201 kg), smaller dressing percentage (55.3 vs. 58.4%), and smaller muscularity scores (3.25 vs. 3.72). In the case of young bulls and heifers fattened on the dairy farm of birth, Belgian Blue-, Piemontese (also known as Piedmontese)-, and Limousin-sired calves performed similarly; the only exception was that Piemontese-sired calves had a greater dressing percentage. Belgian Blue- and Limousin-sired calves performed similarly when fattened by specialized beef producers. In both veal and beef production, the effects of dam breed were less important than sire breed. Considering the entire project, we can conclude that the combined use of sexed semen for purebreeding and conventional beef semen for terminal crossbreeding improves meat production from dairy herds, especially when the sires are double-muscled beef breeds.