The Skinny On 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 all cattle or cows will be subject to a series of tests that the farmers would be giving in order to know about the animal. The very first test that will be performed would be the qualitative test where in one would test mostly physical traits of the cow. One would test the cow for defects in areas like hair color, presence of horns, body shape and such.

After that is performed, then the quantitative test is the next thing that is done on to the animal. Now this test will be more on checking the traits that can be measured in numbers. These things include the weight, the fat content of the animal, the content of nutrients in the animal and such.

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.

Hair sampling is known to be the simplest way to be able to extract a piece of DNA and test it. Now this is the easiest because it just involves getting a bunch of hairs from the tail of the cow. After that, one will now be able to use these pieces of hair in order to extract some bits of DNA.

Now do remember that this type of sampling is not applicable to young calves simply because the hair of the young animals have not fully developed yet. Because of this, then only thing to do is to simply get a blood sample. With the blood sample, one will also be able to extract a strand of DNA.

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.

It is very important to make sure that the cattle is extremely healthy before it is turned into beef so that it does not carry any body disorders. By making sure that each cow goes through a beef cattle genetics test, it is possible to know which meat will be suitable to consume and which are not. From there, farmers will also have an easier time with their job.




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