Crossbreeding of Holstein-Friesian dairy cows with both early maturing (e.g. Aberdeen Angus (AA)) and late maturing (e.g. Belgian Blue (BB)) beef breeds is commonly practised. In Ireland, genetic merit for growth rate of beef sires is expressed as expected progeny difference for carcass weight (EPD(CWT)). The objective of this study was to compare the progeny of Holstein-Friesian cows, sired by...

Genetic improvement of pig performance is a primary tool in enhancing profitability in pig enterprises. The first step of genetically improving livestock is the development of a breeding objective which combines all economically important traits that can be improved by selection. These traits are given economic values that are defined as the increase in profit with a single unit change in each ...

Th e aim of the study was to compare carcass traits between Cika and Brown cattle of all slaughter categories. Th e data used were collected in Slovenian slaughterhouses from 2007 to 2010. Aft er the slaughter carcass weight was recorded and carcass conformation and fatness were scored according to the EUROP system. Net daily gain was calculated. Data were analysed by GLM procedure of statistic...

Changing the body composition of beef has implications for the entire beef production system. The dynamic nature of an animal's body composition and the production system itself make predictions of the implications of genetic change in body composition difficult. The cow-calf, stocker, and feeder segments of the production system will be affected differently. Leaner cattle tend to be slaughtere...

Using internet-based software known as 1000Minds, choice-experiment surveys were administered to experts and farmers from the Irish sheep industry to capture their preferences with respect to the relative importance - represented by part-worth utilities - of target traits in the definition of a breeding objective for sheep in Ireland. Sheep production in Ireland can be broadly separated into lo...

The aim of this study was to estimate genetic parameters for slaughter weight, and carcass fleshiness and fatness in Finnish Ayrshire and Holstein-Friesian bulls and heifers. Animal model, sire model and sire maternal grandsire model were tested for their suitability to evaluate young sires in progeny test. There were 38 188 records on animals slaughtered in two slaughter houses during a period...

A genetic improvement program on the Creole goat of Guadeloupe is presently underway. It is a medium-sized meat breed with a traditional slaughter weight of 18 kg which can be reached at 6 to 18 months of age, depending on the system. Experiments are on-going at INRA upon the effects of diet, management conditions, helminth infestation on Creole kids with the aim of improving the goat meat prod...

The effects of breed and slaughter weight on chemical composition, fatty acid groups, texture, and sensory characteristics of meat of 141 suckling male kids from 5 Spanish breeds were studied. There was a decrease in texture and lightness and hue angle with the increase of the slaughter weight. Fatty acid composition was correlated with the intramuscular fat content. All the breeds except MO ha...

the effect of genotype, sex and hatch on carcass traits and physical characteristics of eggs was investigated in the japanese quail. two strains of japanese quails including the white (p1) and wild (p2) genotypes were chosen as the parental generation and crossed reciprocally (10 single-pair mating) to create the f1 progeny. the f1 birds (27 males and 81 females) were mated randomly to produce ...