Abstract:
Lean meat yield and marbling are two important economic traits being evaluated in a study which aims at understanding influences of early-life nutrition and genotype on growth and development of muscle and fat cells. Calves for this study were bred from Piedmontese (P) and Wagyu (W) sires to obtain maximum numbers of live calves with extremes in birth weight. This paper reports effects of nutrition in utero, fetal sex, sire breed and cow parity on gestation length, and calving and birth traits.
