Prediction of Carcase Intramuscular Fat and Marbling Using Live-Animal Ultrasound in Australian Angus

A common objective for Angus beef producers is to improve the carcase quality of animals used in their breeding program. Through genetics, any improvement made in the breeding herd will flow through to progeny entering the beef supply chain and ultimately to the consumer. Traditionally, direct carcase quality traits like intramuscular fat (IMF) and marbling score have proved expensive and difficult, if not impossible, to measure on selection candidates (e.g. bulls and breeding females). Due to this limitation, breeders typically use correlated ultrasound scan measurements of the live animal to increase selection accuracy of animals ultrasound scanning technology used to predict carcase IMF in Australian Angus herds is the Esaote Aquila system produced by Pie Medical (PIE). This technology facilitates crush-side and real-time image capture, interpretation and analysis using inbuilt software and algorithms. An alternative approach for the prediction of carcase IMF is the Central Ultrasound Processing (CUP) system, Ames, Iowa. The purpose of this study was to estimate phenotypic and genetic parameters for two live-animal ultrasound systems (PIE and CUP) and to determine their relationship with carcase IMF and marbling scores.