Abstract
To establish an estimation method of beef marbling score in live beef cattle, we have investigated correlations among bioelectrical impedance properties in the sirloin part, the content of crude fat in the ribulose part and the sirloin part, and the Beef Marbling Standard (BMS) number. The measurement was conducted with 42 beef cattle one month before slaughter treatment. We adopted the four-electrode method robustly to measure the bioelectrical impedance properties. The needle electrodes were inserted into the four points: 100, 125, 225, 250 [mm] in a line from the last lumbar vertebra. The extracellular resistance Rex, the intracellular resistance Rin, and the cellular membrane capacitance Cm were calculated using the measured data. As the result, a significant correlation was found between Rin, and BMS number. The results suggest that the Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) can be useful to estimate the BMS number of live fattening cattle.
