Marbling And Age Of Cattle

Murray grey cattle grazing at autumn s harvest in new york.

Marbling and age of cattle.

Older animals aren t ideal either. Carcasses are stratified into five maturity groups based on the estimated age of the live animal. The marbling is further encouraged by confining the animals to small pens and feeding them an energy dense diet. Carcasses with more marbling and higher yield grades qualify for higher prices.

These include subcutaneous fat for example rib and rump fat intra muscular fat marbling and inter muscular fat which is positioned between muscles. Determine age using thoracic buttons. Marbling can be influenced by selective breeding. These cattle were fed to age constant average basis of 457 d and the means for carcass weight fat thickness and marbling score are presented in table 1.

Veal or young cattle develop intramuscular fat last after subcutaneous fat kidney pelvic and heart fat and intermuscular fat. Marbling can also be influenced by time on feed. In terms of chronological age the buttons begin to ossify at 30 months of age. Since black angus as a breed features finely textured marbling it s a tried and true beautifully marbled beef.

When an animal is too young it won t display marbling. There are three main types of fat depots in beef cattle carcases. The canadian packing industry will generally discount canada 3 y3 carcasses. The age of cattle is important.

Carcasses with lower yields less marbling cattle over 30 months of age over and under weight carcasses due to genetics and over and underfeeding cattle receive discounts. The shift to primarily black angus in the late 1970s came about in part because black angus cattle marble extremely well. Best quality which means here that the steak is either graded as usda prime grade or is its equivalent in terms of the cattle s age and its marbling quality and that it is dry aged for a substantial period of time. Asian cattle however are fed for much longer periods of time close to three years in fact where u s.

Beef breeds are usually raised and harvested for meat between 18 and 22 months of age. Marbling was significantly higher for purebred angus than purebred hereford steers and the angus steers were also fatter. Increased marbling is associated with improved eating quality through juiciness and flavour. Well raised which means that the cattle are raised in a healthy low stress environment.

When the percentage ossification of the cartilage reaches 10 35 70 and 90 percent the maturity is b c d and e respectively.