The influence of feeding various levels of wet and dry distillers grains to finishing steers on carcass characteristics, meat quality, retail caselife of ground beef, and fatty acid profile of longissimus muscle

Two hundred forty Augus crossbred steers were used to determine the influence of feeding various levels of wet and dry distiller's grains to finishing steers on carcass characteristics, meat quality, retail caselife of ground beef, and fatty acid profile of longissimus muscle. Three replications of five dietary treatments were randomly applied to the 15 pens for each of two years. A finishing diet containing corn, soybean meal and alfalfa hay was fed as the control diet. Wet distiller's grains with solubles (WDGS) or dry distiller's grains with solubles (DDGS) were added to the finishing diets at either 20.0 or 40.0% of the diet dry matter to replace all soybean meal and part of the cracked corn in treatment diets. Dietary levels of 40% distiller's grains in finishing cattle diets may reduce marbling compared to 20% levels. Feeding DGS to finishing steers will probably have no adverse or beneficial effects on glycolytic variables (dark cutters), ground beef retail display life, or meat tenderness. Beef from cattle finished on diets containing DGS will probably have a higher proportion of PUFA and therefore be more susceptible to oxidative rancidity. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...