High-Strung Heifers Make for Bad Beef
US - Beef producers need to be even more sensitive to stress in female cattle on the way to slaughter, a new Beef Checkoff industry study has found.
12 September 2007
2 minute read
Calm cattle make for tender steaks and other beef products, and tenderness is the industry’s most valuable market commodity. But historically it’s been more difficult to guarantee that result from heifers than steers, experts said.Article Tools Printer friendly edition E-mail this to a friend RSS Feed Digg this history Add to Del.icio.us Research by the industry-funded Beef Checkoff is important because it not only confirms other livestock-handling studies but also narrows the focus to gender differences, said Keith Hansen, a consulting nutritionist for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association. The Amarillo, Texas-based association represents 5,000 cattle feeders in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. Of the members who bring their livestock to association feed lots, nearly 700 live in Oklahoma.
“We continue to find that by improving our cattle-handling techniques and making the cattle less apprehensive about where they are and what’s going on, it certainly aids in overall beef quality,”
Keith Hansen, a consulting nutritionist for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.
“We continue to find that by improving our cattle-handling techniques and making the cattle less apprehensive about where they are and what’s going on, it certainly aids in overall beef quality,” Hansen said. “Everything we do now, like modifying working facilities to make it easier for the animals to move, has reduced those overall stressors.”
The study by Colorado State University animal sciences department researchers concluded that heifers feel hassled more acutely than their male counterparts for largely hormonal reasons. Neutered steers, unlike intact bulls, have been deprived of their natural volatile mix of breeding chemistry so they respond to stress more evenly. Females, however, still have to deal with endogenous estrogen cycles that make them edgier and increase pH levels in their muscle fibers.
Pre-harvest cattle under stress yield carcasses that are darker than a normal lean color, referred to in the industry as “dark cutters.” The higher the pH and darker the meat, the tougher the final product, researchers said.
“When shipping heifers, extra precautions should be taken to avoid aggressive handling, excitement or physical exertion before, during or following transport to the processing plant,” the Colorado researchers wrote.
Hansen agreed with the study’s conclusions and pointed to one of the more common feedlot practices recently adopted: Cattlemen no longer take cattle off feed before slaughter. Operators used to believe that by limiting an animal’s food consumption just before processing, the carcass would be easier to work with.
Source: Journal Record
