Improving carcass composition is one factor that can have an impact on lamb consumption and demand (Ward, 1995; Purcell, 1998). Increased size of cuts and decreased fatness are two factors that affect consumer acceptability of lamb (Jeremiah et al., 1993). The lamb producer that markets superior carcasses, with greater consumer appeal, expects to realize financial rewards from doing so. The exp...

The incidence of hyper-contracted giant fibres in pig postmortem skeletal muscle is closely related to poor meat quality in terms of pale, soft, and exudative pork. Detection of a predisposition to develop giant fibres in live pigs could help to predict pork quality and to exclude affected pigs from genetic selection. The abundance and proportion of giant fibres in longissimus muscle were highe...

Fifty-four individually fed crossbred steers were fed dry-rolled corn (DRC) and steam-flaked corn (SFC) based diets with and without 35% wet distiller’s grains plus solubles (WDGS) derived from corn to determine impacts of corn processing method and WDGS inclusion on animal performance and carcass characteristics. No interactions were detected for corn processing method and WDGS inclusion (P ≥ ...

Objectives were to investigate the effects of prolonged gestational and/or postnatal heat stress on performance and carcass composition of market weight pigs. Pregnant gilts were exposed to gestational heat stress (GHS, 28°C to 34°C, diurnal) or thermal neutral (18°C to 22°C, diurnal) conditions during the entire gestation or during the first or second half of gestation. At 14 wk of age (58 ± 5...

Two complementary methods, namely Multi-Trait Meta-Analysis and Versatile Gene-Based Test for Genome-wide Association Studies (VEGAS), were used to identify putative pleiotropic genes affecting carcass traits in Bos indicus (Nellore) cattle. The genotypic data comprised over 777,000 single-nucleotide polymorphism markers scored in 995 bulls, and the phenotypic data included deregressed breeding...

Traditional methods of genetic improvement have yielded long-term, significant improvement in traits relating to production efficiency and overall carcass quality; traits like growth rate, feed conversion, leanness and loin muscle area. These methods require widespread data collection and analysis for continued success. Traits associated with end product or consumer product quality have not rec...

Rabbits are very sensitive to heat stress because they have difficulty eliminating excess body heat. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the effects of heat stress on slaughter weight, dressing percentage and carcass and meat quality traits of rabbits from two genetic groups. Ninety-six weaned rabbits were used: half were from the Botucatu genetic group and half were crossbreds b...

The objective of the study was to evaluate productive, carcass, and tibia mineralization responses in broiler chickens supplemented with a liquid extract humic substances (HS) drinking water. Chicks were housed holding cages from 8-42 days age randomly assigned one five increasing HS levels water (0, 161, 322, 483, 644 µg/L). At 21 42 days, obtain carcass measurements half broilers slaughtered....