AS-441
animal sciences beef
Glossary of Beef Production Terms
Accuracy (of selection)—Correlation between an animal’s unknown actual breeding value and a calculated estimated breeding value.
Average daily gain (ADG)—Measurement of daily body weight change in animal on a feed test. Most bull tests are 140 or 160 days in length.
Adjusted weaning weight (WW)—An unshrunk, off-the-cow weight adjusted to 205 days of age and to a mature dam age equivalence.
Adjusted yearling weight (YW)—An unshrunk weight adjusted to either 365, 452, or 550 days of age and for age of dam.
Ad lib feeding—No limit placed on amount of feed intake. Self-feeding or allowing cattle to consume feed on a free-choice basis.
Alleles—Alternate forms of genes. Because genes occur in pairs in body cells, one gene of a pair may have one effect and another gene of that same pair (allele) may have a different effect on the same trait.
Artificial insemination (A.I.)—The technique of placing semen from the male in the reproductive tract of the female by means other than natural service.
Backcross—The mating of a two-breed crossbred offspring back to one of its parental breeds.
Example: A Hereford-Angus cross cow bred back to an Angus bull.
Beef carcass data service—A program whereby producers, for a fee, can receive carcass evaluation data on their cattle by using a special “carcass data” eartag for their slaughter animals. See county extension director, breed representative, Beef Cattle
Improvement Association representative, or area office of USDA meat grading service for information.
Beef Improvement Federation (BIF)—A federation of organizations, businesses, and individuals interested or involved in performance evaluation of beef cattle. The purposes of BIF are to bring about uniformity of procedures, development of programs, cooperation among interested entities, education of its members and the ultimate consumers of performance evaluation methods, and to build confidence of the beef industry in the principles and potentials of performance testing.
Birth weight (BW)—The weight of a calf taken within 24 hours after birth. Heavy birth weights tend to be correlated with calving problems, but the conformation of the calf and the cow are contributing factors.
Breeder—In most beef breed associations, the owner of the dam of a calf at the time she was mated or bred to produce that calf.
Breeding program goals—The objective or “direction” of breeder’s selection programs. Goals are basic decisions breeders must make to give “direction” to their breeding program. Goals should vary among breeders due to relative genetic merit of their cattle, their resources, and their markets.
Breeding value—Value of an animal as a parent. The working definition is twice the difference between a very large number of progeny and the population average when individuals are mated at random within the population and all progeny are managed alike. The difference is doubled because only a sample half (one gene of each pair) is transmitted from a parent to each progeny. Breeding value exists for each trait and is dependent on the population in