News from the Midwest Sectional Meetings, March 16-18, 1998, Des Moines, Iowa
Contacts:
Glen Dolezal, Oklahoma State University, (405) 744-6616|
Tom Jirik, ASAS/ADSA Media Coordinator, North Dakota State University,
(701) 231-9629
Oklahoma Researchers Look for Link Between Healthy Cattle and Eating Quality
DES MOINES, Iowa – Oklahoma researchers want to know if healthier cattle in the feedlot translate into tastier and more tender meat on consumer’s plates.
"Cattle producers have always known that health is important to profitability. But we need to look at livestock health from the perspective of the consumer in terms of meat quality," explains Glen Dolezal a beef researcher at Oklahoma State University. He notes that consumer surveys have identified inconsistencies in beef eating qualities such as tenderness, juiciness and flavor as major roadblocks to market growth.
Dolezal and graduate student Brett Gardner found that if they looked at lungs of cattle at slaughter, lesions in the lungs from respiratory ailments accurately reflected reduced feedlot performance, carcass weight, marbling and exterior fat levels. Carcasses of cattle with lesions also received lower U.S. meat quality grades. Based on the lesion observations, the researchers could also predict improved yield of lean meat. And if the lesions indicated an active infection, meat was typically more tender.
"If you classify carcasses according to lung lesions, it’s a more discerning method than the observations we currently use," Dolezal says. "The problem is trying to do that at the rate of 400 head per hour that move through commercial processing facilities."
And the links between health and eating qualities are still murky.
"We saw a link between lung lesions and less-tender meat, but was that cold-induced because the cattle were leaner? Or was there an enzymatic change prompted by infection? Those are the kinds of questions we still need to answer," Dolezal says. Additional research needs to determine if there’s a link between health and taste and juiciness.
Additionally, there’s concern that up to half of the cattle that showed evidence of a previous or current illness in their lungs were never detected and treated in the feedlot, he notes.
With cooperation from a large Kansas feedlot, Dolezal and Gardner tracked the respiratory health of cattle from the time they entered the feedlot until they were slaughtered. A veterinarians from the Great Plains Veterinary Education Center in Nebraska performed the lung examinations. Those examinations revealed evidence that about a third of cattle had suffered from respiratory illness. Only half of those were observed and treated in the feedlot.
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