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Thursday 28 November 2013

Doing Beef Cattle Genetics Tests

By Susan Dawson


In the meat manufacturing industry, beef cattle genetics tests are very important things to go through before the livestock would be turned into consumable food. Sometimes, there would be some livestock that would be hereditary diseases or other disorders in them that would be harmful to consumers. Now if they do not go through proper testing in the farm, then the quality of the meat produce will be compromised.

Now the first thing that these animals would have to go through would be a qualitative test where in they are tested based on the quality of their traits. Now the qualitative test will actually check for things like hair color, hair texture, horns, body shape or other types of physical traits. This will check to see if there are any kinds of deformities.

The next test is known as the quantitative test which will measure certain things about the animal that can be calculated in numbers. Things like weight, amount of fat, and the amount of certain nutrients in the body of a cattle will really be measured. This is to ensure that all the statistics meet the standards of its manufacturer.

Now what some farms do is that they use sampling kits in order to test the animals that they are raising before they send it off to get killed and served later as meat produce. Now there are a lot of labs that offer kits like this so that farmers will know if their cattle are healthy or not. Of course these kits come complete with an instruction manual that one may use when sampling.

The simple way to test the cow or cattle would be through the simplest method of sampling which is the hair sampling. Basically, all one has to do is locate the hairs at the end of the tail of a cow and pull a few out. From there, one will be able to test the structure of the DNA using the sampling kit.

Now for the calves who do not have the proper hair follicles yet because they are still young. For these kinds of cases, the blood sample would be the best testing ground because it can also extract DNA from the body of the calf. This is the alternative that will be done instead of the hair sampling test.

For the blood sampling, it will not be as simple as pulling out a hair strand. This type will require using a syringe to draw out the blood from the body of a calf and then testing it. Once the blood has been drawn, then one will put it in a test tube where it will be tested.

Take note that these tests will definitely be beneficial to farmers because they would have to check for any irregularities in the beef cattle genetics. If there are some irregularities in the body of the animal, there might be some differences in the quality of meat. Also, some genetic disorders may be given to consumers because of this.




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