A joint growth-carcass model using random regression was used to estimate the (co)variance components of beef cattle body weights and carcass quality traits and correlations between them. During a four-year period (1994-1997) of the Australian "southern crossbreeding project", mature Hereford cows (N = 581) were mated to 97 sires of Jersey, Wagyu, Angus, Hereford, South Devon, Limousin, and Bel...

With the adoption of visual instrument grading, the calculated yield grade can be used for payment to cattle producers selling on grid pricing systems. The USDA beef carcass grading standards include a relationship between required LM area (LMA) and HCW that is an important component of the final yield grade. As noted on a USDA yield grade LMA grid, a 272-kg (600-lb) carcass requires a 71-cm(2)...

A study was conducted to compare the growth performance as well as blood and carcass variables of two broiler strains reared in a conventional broiler house and a modified greenhouse equipped with cooling pads and tunnel ventilation system. Eight hundred day-old chickens of two commercial strains (Ross  308 and Lohmann) were selected and placed in  8 floor pens (4 pens of  50 broilers for each ...

Carcass evaluation has a relatively long history in the animal and meat science scientific literature and one of the first studies to cover the composition of farm animals was reported by Lawes and Gilbert (1860) almost 130 years ago. These workers completed a large number of chemical analyses and found a relationship between fat and maturity (age and weight); a finding that has been repeated b...

In each of two experiments, 70 crossbred steers were blocked by BW and assigned to initial slaughter groups or to treatments in a 2 x 2 design. In Exp. 1, treatments were 168 d of photoperiod (8 h of light [L]:16 h of dark [D] or 16L:8D) and plane of nutrition (high energy [HPN] or low energy [LPN]). On d -22, 67 and 155, blood was sampled every 20 min for 8 h. Relative to LPN, HPN increased (P...

Spanish x Boer (n = 16) and Spanish x Kiko (n = 18) wethers (7 mo) and bucklings (5 mo) were harvested under USDA inspection to evaluate the effect of dam breed on carcass traits of crossbred kids. Boer and Kiko dams, respectively, originated from five and seven seedstock farms. Each dam was purebred or fullblood (93.75 to 100%). Traits of interest included live weight and conformation score, c...

The objective of this study was to quantify the genetic variation in carcass cuts predicted using digital image analysis in commercial cross-bred cattle. The data set comprised 38,404 steers and 14,318 heifers from commercial Irish herds. The traits investigated included the weights of lower value cuts (LVC), medium value cuts (MVC), high value cuts (HVC), very high value cuts (VHVC) and total ...

Heritabilities of and genetic correlations between additive direct and maternal genetic effects for calf market weight, and additive direct genetic effects for carcass traits, were estimated for Japanese Black cattle by REML procedures under 2-trait animal models. Data were collected from calf and carcass markets in Hyogo and Tottori prefectures and analyzed separately by prefecture. Calf marke...

Recent work [Ecoscience (2000) vol. 7, 395-397] suggests that the burying beetle Nicrophorus pustulatus may have undergone a remarkable host shift, exploiting snake eggs rather than carrion as resources for breeding. We conducted behavioural and physiological experiments to examine the hypothesis of a host shift and to formulate hypotheses on its origin. Two congeners of N. pustulatus, Nicropho...

Progressive growth of the Walker 256 carcinoma produces anorexia and loss of carcass weight (6). Carcass weight loss has been prevented by forcefeeding a high fat diet, but other systemic effects (decreased liver catalase activity, anemia, and adrenal enlargement) still occurred (1). It was suggested that loss of carcass weight is not a neces sary component of the reactions leading to the devel...