BRIEF COMMUNICATION: Quality of meat from steers born to beef-cross-dairy cows and sired by Hereford bulls

Title BRIEF COMMUNICATION: Quality of meat from steers born to beef-cross-dairy cows and sired by Hereford bulls
Publication Type Conference Paper
Year of Publication 2014
Authors NM, SchrNZDs , Hickson R E. , LW Coleman , PR Kenyon , NP Martin , and ST Morris
Conference Name Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production
Date Published 06/2014
Conference Location Napier
Keywords Cow efficiency project
Abstract

The dairy industry is playing an increasing role in beef production in New Zealand. It is estimated that 65% of the beef produced in New Zealand originates from dairy herds in the form of Friesian bull beef, first-cross dairy-beef cattle, or cull cows (Morris 2008). The dairy herd has a role in the generation of beef-cross-dairy breed heifers that are used as beef breeding cows. Dairy cattle genetics are not oriented towards meat production and this raises the question as to the suitability of beef-cross-dairy breed cows for producing progeny that are slaughtered for meat production. The quality of meat from the progeny of first-cross dairy-beef cows is largely unknown. The main dairy breed used in New Zealand is the Holstein-Friesian and the Jersey breed is also very predominant. To take advantage of hybrid vigour, the Friesian-Jersey cross is commonplace in the New Zealand dairy herd. The Friesian-Jersey cross is now considered as a breed in itself and called the ”Kiwi-cross“ or ”Kiwi" breed (Garrick & Lopez-Villalobos, 1998). Therefore, the objective of this study was to compare the quality of meat from steers which had an Angus (AA), Angus-cross-Friesian (AF), Angus-cross-Kiwi (AK) or Angus-cross-Jersey (AJ) dam. The steers were sired by Hereford bulls and so, the straight-bred Angus dams (AA) provided steers with beef-only genetics for comparison....

URL http://www.nzsap.org/proceedings/2014/brief-communication-quality-meat-steers-born-beef-cross-dairy-cows-and-sired
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