FACTORS AFFECTING THE

GROWTH AND
DEVELOPMENT OF MEAT
ANIMALS
Genetic
Makeup/Breed
• The genetic makeup of animals influences the
growth in earlier embryonic life as differences
exist in the rate of cell division of their embryo
• The breed of animals has significant impact on
different parameters of commercial importance
and one main among them is degree of fatness
• The fatness level in carcasses varies greatly in
animals having same weight or age but
different breed
• e.g. sheep breed Suffolk and Southdown
slaughter at same weight (20 kg) have 32.9
and 38.5% fat respectively in their carcass
• The physiological age at birth depends upon how
a great part of growth is spent in uterus
• The birth weight of young ones is influence by
age, size and nutritional status of mother
• The length of gestation period (5 months for
sheep and 9 months for cattle), sex and number
of young one born also have impact on the birth
weight
• The young mothers generally have low birth
weight offspring compared to mature females and
similarly the birth weight of offspring is greater
from larger animal compared to smaller mothers
• The recessive genes in cattle control certain
growth features like dwarfism
• The responsible gene controls the longitudinal
bone growth and vertebral development in lumbar
region
• A major gene having significant role in meat
animal growth and quality of their flesh is the
“Barooroola gene (F)”
• The selection of animals for improved performance
can be done based on the heritable characters like
birth weight, growth from birth to weaning, post-
weaning growth and feed conversion efficiency
(Table 1.4)
• The differences in requirement of essential
nutrients like vitamin D and pantothenic acid by
domestic animal are genetically controlled
• One of the important aspects of gene variability is
the determination of the endocrine control balance
of growth and development
• The genetic compatibility with environment
affects the apparent variation in growth
• The lambs with higher rate of thyroid secretion
have rapid growth compared to those with
intrinsically low rate of thyroid secretion
• The advances in genetics and breeding have
made it possible to alter the specific features of
muscles
Environmental conditions
• The regulation of heat in farm animals is the
subject of wide economic importance
• The body temperature is maintained at constant
level by cattle and sheep required for optimum
biological activity
• The living organism can tolerate normally an
environmental temperature lying in the range of 0-
40oC but some animal are habitual to extreme
conditions like below freezing or above 50oC
• The short periods of even more sever conditions
are compatible with polar animal survival as they
can tolerate -80oC by maintaining their body
temperatures
• The development of animals is extended in the
environment of low temperature while high
temperatures retard the development of un-
adapted livestock
• The uniform low or high temperature has lesser
impact on the metabolism of animals but variable
temperatures have greater influence
• An animal can tolerate prolong exposure to heat
or cold waves by hormonal changes to these two
stress conditions
• The animals having large bodies can better
withstand the low temperature of cold
environment because of low surface to volume
ratio while small animals due to high surface to
volume ratio can efficiently dissipate heat in
warm environment
• The yak among cattle has heavy and compact body
with short neck and legs covered with thick long
hair inhabitant to the regions of cold environment
and rarefied atmosphere
• The temperate regions cattle have somewhat less
compact body than cold environment cattle
• The cattle of tropical regions have angular frame,
long legs and neck, large dewlap to increase
surface to volume ratio and have coat of short hair
• Furthermore, the tropical cattle have lightly
colored coat as dark coloration absorb more
radiant energy
• The temperate region animals will have higher
body temperature than tropical animals under
conditions of heat stress
• The heat disposal mechanisms are less efficient in
temperate region animals and they maintain their
body temperature through behavioral changes like
voluntary restriction of feed intake, seeking shade
and inactivity
• Feed and Nutrition
• The development, dominance and survival of all
living organism are determined by the most
important factor of finding enough foods of
right kinds
• The major proportion of life time of all cold
blooded animals and most of warm blooded
animals is spent doing nothing
• They spent greater part of their life in eating
when they start doing
• The feed and nutrition factors affecting the
growth and development of animals are plan
and quality of nutrition, interspecies
interaction, plant nutrition and micronutrients
• Feeding plan and nutritional quality
• The feeding plan and nutritional quality of feed
at any stage of animal life alter the growth of
animal in general and also affect the
development of different regions, tissues and
organs differentially
• The animal of same breed and weight will vary in
form and composition if they have different
feeding plans and nutrients quality
• The brain and nervous system have priority over
bone, muscles and fat in development order in
relation to plan of nutrition
• The tissues and body regions are utilized in
reverse order of their maturity for energy and
protein supply to body under conditions of low
nutrients diets
• Fats are utilized first under these conditions
followed by proteins and bones and these are
first depleted from those regions latest to
maturity
• The high plan of nutrition lead to faster growth
rate causing earlier onset of growth’s fattening
phase
• The fastest growing animals may become leaner
by increasing the protein/energy ratios and at
very high ratio the growth rate can be diminished
• Male animals require diets having high
protein/energy ratio than female and this
requirement can causes the difference in carcass
composition between two sexes fed on same
protein/energy ratio diet
• The rumen microflora substantially determined
the intake to ruminant tissues so they have
quite different relationship with quality of diet
• Ammonia derived from deamination of soluble
protein entering the rumen is the major
nitrogen source for microbial synthesis and
activity of the micro-flora and is determined by
amount of energy available to animals
• The ingested protein through high protein diet
may be excreted as non-incorporated ammonia
• The non-protein nitrogen of low protein fed
diets can be converted to proteins and ruminant
may vary in their protein requirements
depending upon their rumen microflora and
these amino acids can be supplemented in the
feed of ruminants
Plane and quality of nutrition
• Differences in the plane of nutrition at any age from the late
foetal stage of maturity not only alter growth generally but
also affect the different regions, the different tissues and the
various organs differentially
• Thus animals on different planes of nutrition, even if they
are of the same breed and weight, will differ greatly in form
and composition
• The relationship of the ruminant to the quality of the diet is
different since the intake into the tissues is substantially
determined by the rumen microflora
Interaction with other species
• In general, there are definite upper and lower limits to the
size of animal which a carnivore can utilize
• The most serious effects of other animal species on
domestic stock, however, arise indirectly when the rate of
natural increase of small species
• The rabbit, when introduced into Australia, increased at a
phenomenal rate and denuded vast areas of the vegetation
upon which stock had previously subsisted
• Some species, of course, are beneficial to domestic stock
• Ruminants largely depend on the micro-organisms in their
digestive tract to break down the cellulose of plant foods
• They are thus equipped to make use of poor-quality diets
Soils and plant growth
•Although some animals are carnivores they are ultimately as
dependent on plant life for their sustenance as the herbivores
•Food represents stored energy utilizable by animals and it
can be released at a rate determined by metabolic needs
•The major ultimate source of energy is sunlight; and it is
only in the Plant Kingdom that a mechanism exists for its
conversion into a stored form
•The fertility of soils depends not only on thechemical nature
of the rocks from which they have been formed but also on
particle size
• The latter determines how much moisture soils will hold
and for how long, and the availability of its nutrients to
plants
• Soils and climate affect plant growth qualitatively as well
as quantitatively
• The grasses of low nitrogen content develop on acid soils
• The nitrogen content of grasses and legumes diminishes on
prolonged exposure to high temperatures
• The digestibility of plants may be altered artificially
• The increasing use of plant growth substances, such as
gibberellic acid, which increases the internode distance in
grasses, tends to lower the nitrogen content of grasses and
to decrease digestibility
Trace materials in soils and pastures
• It is being increasingly recognized that many animal
ailments can be explained on the basis of dietary
deficiencies or excesses of biologically potent materials
which are present only in minute quantities in soils and
pastures
• A deficiency of cobalt in the soils of certain areas was the
cause of various wasting and nervous diseases in cattle and
sheep which had been known for many years by settlers
• Animals, after grazing for several months, would lose their
appetite and finally die in the midst of rich pasture
• Copper deficiency inhibits the action of various amine
oxidases, and, thereby, the structural integrity of elastin and
collagen in connective tissues
• An excess of molybdenum in the soil is said to enhance
copper deficiency in animals
• An excess of selenium interferes with metabolism by
displacing sulphur from the essential –SH groups of
dehydrogenase enzymes
• An excess of potassium, by interfering with the
accumulation of sodium, alters the ionic balance of body
fluids and may cause hypersensitivity to histamine
• Conditions such as grass tetany and milk fever, wherein
the magnesium or calcium content of blood serum is
especially low
• Toxicity in stock may also arise by the excess ingestion of
trace organic substances
• Some pastures, may contain sufficient isoflavones or
flavones of oestrogenic potency to affect the reproductive
activity of grazing ewes