Post-slaughter indicators of meat productivity and chemical composition of the muscular tissues of bulls receiving corrective diet with protein-vitamin premix

Abstract

The problem of increasing the production of beef to provide the population with domestically-produced meat is mainly being solved by selective breeding of dairy and combined breeds. Therefore, there is a need for the development and introduction of complex measures to increase meat productivity of young cattle, especially regarding the completeness of diet and optimal content of mineral elements in it. The study was conducted on bulls of the Ukrainian Black-Spotted Dairy breed starting from the age of 6 up to the age of 15 months. At the end of the experiment, the animals were slaughtered, 5 from each group. The study was aimed at determining the effect of the protein-vitamin premix Intermix Fattening on the slaughter parameters, morphological composition of carcass and flesh composition by quality grades, chemical composition of the muscle tissue. Statistical analysis of the results revealed that feeding bulls with the supplement increased pre-slaughter live weight by 7.1% and slaughter weight by 9.8%. After meat separation, more edible parts of carcass were obtained in the absolute value. The weight of paired carcass was 9.5% higher. Intake of the diet with proteinvitamin premix influenced the bulls' characteristics of growth and development of musculature and bones, intensity of fat deposition, leading to 10.8% increase in flesh and no statistical decrease in the yield of bones compared with the carcass weight. Muscle-bone ratio equaled 4.27 in the control, and 4.56 in the experimental animals. Meatiness index of the young animals that had received the supplement with the diet was higher by 11.1%. Flesh of carcasses of bulls belonging to the experimental group had higher content of valuable grades of beef. We obtained 27.3% more flesh of the highest quality and 11.5% of the first-grade quality. In the muscle tissue and the longissimus of the bulls that had been consuming the premix, the concentration of dry matter was higher by 0.78%, and protein by 0.85%. Use of the Intermix protein-vitamin premix would lead to an increase in live weight of animals, and therefore significantly increase the yield of meat and improve the morphological composition of the bulls' carcasses.