The factors influencing beef quality in bulls, heifers and steers
2009
Filipčík, R., Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry, Brno (Czech Republic) | Šubrt, J., Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry, Brno (Czech Republic) | Bjelka, M., Research Institute for Cattle Breeding, Ltd., Rapotín (Czech Republic)
In the present study the biological factors which affect the nutritional and technological parameters and tenderness of beef were evaluated. We evaluated the effect of nutrition, commercial type, age of the animals at slaughter, carcass weight, netgains, duration of beef ageing and the class of meatiness and fat content in bulls, heifers and steers. For the experiment we chose animals at the end of the grazing period when they were weaned.The animals were fattened in the stable and divided into 3 groups (each group was represented by bulls, heifers and steers) based on the type of the feed ration: 1st group: maize silage, clover-grass silage, meadow hay and concentrates; 2nd group: maize silage, meadow hay, concentrates and urea; 3rd group: in winter the animals were fed clover-grass silage, from the end of April they grazed. Significant (P less or equal 0.05) differences were revealed between the categories of cattle in the content of intramuscular fat, water holding capacity, meat colour, cooking loss, and meat tenderness. While evaluating the factors of animal nutrition, commercial type and carcass weight showed highly significant differences (P less or equal 0.01) in the content of total protein and intramuscular fat in the meat.The technological properties of the meat were dependent (P less or equal 0.01) on the type of the feed ration and on the commercial type, but they were also affected by the animals age at slaughter and duration of beef ageing which are the most important factors affecting the tenderness of meat.
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