12/18/06, 04:48 PM
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Alberta Farmgirl
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Alberta, Canada (Not the USA!)
Posts: 903
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Belgian Blue cattle are probably what most beef people frown on...their bone structure of these cattle are not meant for having so much heavy muscle, especially in their legs. Finely-boned legs are more apt to get weak very quickly, making the animal hard to walk. I heard some where that a bunch of men had to help a belgian blue walk up a small trailer by physically lifting up the bull's leg, putting it forward and setting it down, and then repeating the same process with the other three legs, until they got the poor animal up into the trailer. Now THAT would've been work, especially if the bull would've weighed over 5 000 lbs.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the cows/heifers would have trouble giving birth naturally, so a C-section would've been done. And mating? Probably the same deal. "The syndrome is associated with some production problems such as reduced fertility, dystocia (difficult giving birth aka abnormal birthing positions of the unborn fetus) and reduced calf survival." (From Double muscling in cattle: a review, journal article by P.F. Arthur.)
There's another breed that has the double-muscling gene...Piedmontese.
Another thing to note is what they say at the top of this website is sort of true, but not really. The gene that causes double muscling is actually a mutated gene. Forgive me for getting a little sciency here, but in the DNA sequence, specifically in the myostatin sequence, there is a deletion in the nucleotide chain that causes a frame shift in the DNA sequence which throws everything off, in other words virtually eliminating all the mature, active region of the myostatin molecule, or, preventing proper regulation in skeletal muscle mass(since this is what the unmutated myostatin gene is responsible for) in this particular breed. This is also the similar story for the Piedmontese cattle, fyi.
Here's some more facts from the same journal I mentioned above:
"Cattle showing the syndrome, however, have higher meat yield, a higher proportion of expensive cuts of meat, and lean and very tender meat. The superior meat and carcase characteristics have been responsible for their widespread use in Europe, where premium price is paid for double muscled carcases. Piedmontese and Belgian Blue cattle have recently been imported into Australia. These double-muscled breeds will have a role to play in beef and dairy-beef production systems in Australia. For commercial production it is recommended that the breeding female herd be kept free from double muscling. A terminal sire breeding system is suggested, whereby normal females are mated to double muscled sires and all progeny slaughtered. "
Just my two cents worth.
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Answer to the question wheres the beef....
