Meat quality/colour of bullock

[groubearfarm]

I was intrigued today when fellow Dexter breeders suggested that the colour of the animal would influence the quality of the meat. In this case a red steer of 30 months did not have the marbling and moist texture of the black equivilent although it was killed, hung and butchered in exactly the same way. I would be fascinated to know if anyone else has experienced this. Fiona

[ann]

I butcher both red and black and have never noticed a difference, I will have to check my next carcase.

I would have though Di would be the expert on this one as I expect she will have butchered all the colours!

:p :p

[Rob R]

Sounds like a ludicrous suggestion to me, the reds have all tasted as good, if not better, as the blacks here. We had our first dun calf born this year, so in 2008 I'll have to come back to this & compare the three :D

[moomin]

I have never seen any difference in quality between red and black carcases. The only difference I have seen is that dun carcases have deeper yellow fat.
There is also a difference in the carcase in the real dwarfs - not the normal short legs - but the tiny little runts with twisted feet. They have a different distribution of fat in the loin area. There seems to be an extra seam of fat which runs within the sirloin and the rib. I have seen this time and time again.
However it is important to catch the right time to present the animal for slaughter.
Animals grow in steps like humans. To put it simply, if you present an animal for slaughter when it is in a bone growth stage, i.e. when it is growing taller, then you won't have the marbling and quality because the muscles are "stretched". You need to catch it near the end of a plateau stage, when it is growing out rather than up and it has hung more muscle on those bones! Common sense really if you think about it.

[Inger]

I presume they were all the same grade? There would be a difference between a purebred and a G2 animal say.