Fetal Programming and Its Effects on Meat Quality of Nellore Bulls.

Simple Summary: Population growth, which generates a worldwide concern regarding the supply of food to meet this demand, is expected in the coming years. In Brazil, beef cattle farming remains significant, but the sector aims to increase its share of the supply of beef to the global market. Therefore, the adoption of strategies to obtain more productive and higher quality animals becomes essential. Nutrition is one of the main pillars of animal performance and can directly contribute to this objective, even more so when it happens even before the animal is born, via maternal nutrition. The importance of this lies in taking advantage of windows of fetal development linked to the formation of muscle and fat. For this, we used analyses of carcass yield and meat quality to assess how the diet of the mother at different stages of pregnancy affects the offspring. And we found that it was not possible to observe changes in the meat, but there is evidence of alterations in the tissues that make up the meat. Much is linked to the level of supplementation that the females received and not exclusively to the gestation period. We suggest further studies to clarify the factors that directly influence meat. This work aimed to evaluate the effects of prenatal nutritional stimulation at different pregnancy stages on carcass traits and meat quality in bovine progeny. For this purpose, 63 Nellore bulls, born from cows submitted to three nutritional plans, were used: not programmed (NP), which did not receive protein supplementation; partially programmed (PP), which had protein-energy supplementation (0.3% of mean body weight of each batch) only in the final third of pregnancy; and full programming (FP), which received supplementation (0.3% of mean body weight of each batch) throughout pregnancy. The averages of parameters were submitted to the ANOVA, and the supplementation periods, which were different when p value < 0.05, were compared. Carcass weights and rib eye area (REA) did not differ between treatments (p > 0.05), but subcutaneous fat thickness (SFT) showed a tendency (p = 0.08) between groups. For lipids and marbling, no differences were found (p > 0.05). In the analyses of maturation time and shelf life, no difference was observed between treatments. However, there was a tendency between treatments at 14 days of maturation time for cooking loss (CL) (p = 0.08). Treatments did not affect shear force in the progenies (p > 0.05). Fetal programming had no effect on the meat quality of Nellore bulls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]