Relationships between net feed efficiency (NFE) and mechanical measures of beef tenderness and cooking loss in finishing Stabiliser steers

摘要

Earlier work has shown that substantial variation in NFE exists within the Stabiliser cattle population in the UK (Hyslop et al, 2014) and that NFE is a moderately heritable trait suggesting that genetic selection based on traditional quantitative genetic approaches will lead to future generations of Stabiliser cattle with improved feed efficiency. However, it is important to assess the possibility of inadvertently selecting for any additional traits such as beef eating quality that may be associatedwith low NFE animals. Consequently the objective of the current study was to examine the potential relationships between NFE measured in finishing Stabiliser steers and measures of mechanical beef tenderness and cooking loss in sirloin steaks obtained from the same individual steers following slaughter.