NUTRITIONAL QUALITY OF CULL COWS WITH VERY EARLY WEANED CALVES IN ARGENTINA

BIOLATTO, A.; MOLTO, G.; ARAUJO, S.; VITTONE, S.; OTERO, G.; GALLI, I.; PAZOS, A.A.; PIGHIN, D.G.; TEIRA, G.; PERLO, F.; TISSOCO, O.; BONATO, P.

Jeju

Congreso; 56th International Congress of Meat Science and Technology-ICoMST; 2010

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of very early weaning of calves in cull cows on nutritional quality of meat. Two treatments were assayed: cull cows with very early, thirty days, weaned calves (CVEW) and cull cows with traditionally, seven months, weaned calves (CTW). Cows with very early weaned calves were grazed on pasture, meanwhile cows with traditional weaning were grazed on pasture and finished in feedlot to obtain the same frame score and slaughter weight than CVEW. Fatty acid composition and amino acid composition were determined on L. dorsi muscle by gas-chromatography and cation-exchange chromatography, respectively. Meat from CVEW contained lower SFA (P < 0.1), MUFA (P < 0.1), n-6 PUFA (P > 0.1) and higher n-3 PUFA (P < 0.1) and cis-9, trans-11 CLA (P < 0.05) than meat from CTW. Amino acids did not present significant difference between the treatments assayed. However, a tendency of higher level of amino acids in meat from CYEW compared to meat from CTW was observed.  The results indicate that the very early weaning would allow produce high nutritional quality cull cow meat.