GROWTH PATTERNS OF MUSCLE, FAT AND BONE, AND CARCASS COMPOSITION OF DOUBLE MUSCLED AND NORMAL CATTLE

Abstract

Eighteen Double Muscled (DM), 18 Beef Synthetic (SY) and 18 Hereford (HE) bulls were serially slaughtered from approximately 250 to 800 kg liveweight to determine the influence of maturity type and "double muscling" on tissue growth patterns and compositional differences which were examined by using the allometric equation Y = aX b after transformation to common logarithms (log 10 ). As liveweight (LW) increased, the proportions of total side fat (TSF) and subcutaneous fat (SCF) increased, the proportions of total side muscle (TSM) and intermuscular fat (IMF) remained relatively constant and the proportion of total side bone (TSB) decreased. Relative to LW, DM had a similar growth rate for TSM and lower growth rates for TSF, SCF and IMF than HE and SY. All breed types had similar growth rates for TSB on LW. Relative to dissected side weight (DSW) and TSB, the DM bulls had a higher growth rate for TSM than did the HE and S Y bulls. Differences existed between DM and the more normal genotypes in carcass composition. DM was characterized by a high muscle:liveweight ratio, a high proportion of muscle in the carcass, high muscle:bone and muscle:fat ratios and a low proportion of fat compared to the more normal genotypes. Objective criteria to discriminate between HE and DM were SCF, muscle:bone and TSMTMF ratios, and between SY and DM were TSB and muscle:bone ratio. Key words: Beef bulls (young), growth patterns, carcass composition, double muscling, breed type