Table 11.
NBQA: muscle score1 frequencies (%) compared across the 20072 and 20163 surveys
| Muscle score | 2007 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|
| Beef cows | ||
| 1 | 32.0 | 21.4 |
| 2 | 31.5 | 33.5 |
| 3 | 25.3 | 29.5 |
| 4 | 8.3 | 11.3 |
| 5 | 2.9 | 4.3 |
| Dairy cows | ||
| 1 | 53.0 | 35.3 |
| 2 | 36.8 | 54.0 |
| 3 | 9.4 | 9.6 |
| 4 | 0.8 | 0.9 |
| 5 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Beef bulls | ||
| 1 | 4.9 | 7.0 |
| 2 | 13.1 | 24.9 |
| 3 | 30.7 | 36.2 |
| 4 | 23.4 | 23.0 |
| 5 | 27.9 | 8.9 |
| Dairy bulls | ||
| 1 | 11.7 | 6.9 |
| 2 | 27.7 | 39.7 |
| 3 | 28.7 | 34.5 |
| 4 | 19.2 | 10.3 |
| 5 | 12.8 | 8.6 |
11 = light muscled, 5 = heavy muscled. 2National Market Cow and Bull Beef Quality Audit–2007 (Nicholson, 2008). Total number of observations were: beef cows (n = 1,315), dairy cows (n = 1,320), beef bulls (n = 245), and dairy bulls (n = 95). 3Total number of observations were: beef cows (n = 1,691), dairy cows (n = 1,701), beef bulls (n = 213), and dairy bulls (n = 58).