Influence of maintenance technology in arid conditions on efficiency of marbled beef production

Abstract

In recent years, Russia has been developing domestic single-purpose meat cattle breeding. Some livestock farms have focused on the production of high-quality grades of raw meat, i.e. ‘marbled’ beef. Meat of that kind is in great demand in the premium meat market. At the same time, production of beef without using steroids and hormonal drugs increases the competitiveness of this product on the world market in countries of the West and the Middle East. Within the framework of our study, an experiment was conducted on Kalmyk cattle in the arid conditions of OAO Kirovskij in the Republic of Kalmykia. Standardized methods of analysis were used. For the experiment, 10-month-old steers were selected and divided into two groups (Control and Test), 30 heads each. They were kept and fed according to different technologies until the age of 19 months. The Test group steers were kept tied up and fed with a diet developed by the Volga Region Research Institute of Manufacture and Processing of Meat-and-Milk Production; the Control group steers were kept according to conventional beef cattle production technology. The wide expansion range and popularity of this cattle breed are caused by the high productivity of steers whether kept tied up or allowed to graze free. The compared qualities of beef obtained from Kalmyk steers proved that keeping them tied up allows increased production efficiency of raw meat which is an important factor for meat production, being intensified in an unstable situation in agriculture

Keywords

• beef
• feeding technology
• grass-fed
• ‘marbled’
• meat cattle breeding