Factors Influencing Feed Efficiency and Backfat Thickness in Station Tested Beef Bulls

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Makarechian, M.
  • Price, M. A.
  • Huedepohl, C.
  • Liu, M. F.

• Records taken on 372 young beef bulls tested at the Ellerslie Bull Test Station, Alberta, Canada from November 1981 to April 1987 were analyzed to quantify the effects of age of dam, on-test age, on-test liveweight and gerd of origin of bull on feed efficiency (feed/gain, kg/kg) in the test period(n = 231) and ultrasonic measurement of backfat thickness(mm) at the end of the test(n = 372). The reduction in R2 due to each influencing factor(i.e. the variation accounted for by the factor) was used to indicate the importance of the influencing factor. Age of dam and on-test age of bull were not important factors on feed/gain and ultrasonic backfat thickness, respectively(p>0.1). On-test liveweight had some infouence on feed/gain and ultrasonic backfat thickness, accounting for 3.5%(p16%) in feed/gain and ultrasonic backfat thickness(p = 0.08), indicating that a prolonged adjustment period was needed to reduce the influence of herd of origin when assenssing aggregate genetic merit of beef bulls for growth rate, feed efficiency and lean meat production using a central station performance testing program.

• Date created

  1995

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Performance test
  • Beef bulls
  • Herd effect

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R38S4JR27

• License

  @1995 Liu, M. F., Makarechian, M., Price, M. A., Huedepohl, C. This version of this article is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The original author(s) and source must be cited.