Abstract

RAMIREZ-BARBOZA, José Ignacio; VALVERDE-ABARCA, Anthony  and  ROJAS-BOURRILLON, Augusto. Effect of breed and energy levels during the finishing phase of steers on grazing. Agron. Mesoam [online]. 2017, vol.28, n.1, pp.43-57. ISSN 2215-3608.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/am.v28i1.21472.

The objective of this paper was to evaluate the effect of the breed and energy supplementation in steers during the final stage of grazing on weight gain, cannel quality and the cut-in force (kg). The evaluation period of the study was of 144 days, during the year of 2014. It was done in the “La Vega” farm in the county of San Carlos, Alajuela, Costa Rica. Twenty six animals were used, distributed in two breed groups and three levels of supplementation totaling six experimental treatments: E-T0 (3,2 Mcal), C-T0 (3,2 Mcal), E-T1 (3,4 Mcal), C-T1 (3,4 Mcal), E-T2 (3,67 Mcal) y C-T2 (3,67 Mcal). The evaluated variables were: dialy weight gain (DWG) y and live weight and the canal, marbling, muscular development, dorsal fat, channel performance, spinal fat thickness (SFT), perirenal fat weight, thickness of the loin eye (TLE) and finally the cutting force (CT) as a parameter of the meat quality. No significance differences were found in daily weight gain, canal weight, marbling, muscular development and dorsal fat due to the effect of the ration (P>0,05). A breed component effect was found in the quality of the meat (P<0,05), where European animals presented softer meat in a ripening period of fourteen days (5,32 vs 8,53 kg).

Keywords : beef cattle; weight daily gain; beef quality; marbling.

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