2. Materials and methods
2.1. Animal resources and slaughter
Seventy-eight crossbred steers born in the spring of 2010, were used in this experiment. The steers were sired by one of 12 Hereford (HH) bulls and the dams were primiparous, two-year-old cows of four breeds: straight-bred Angus (AA), Angus × Holstein Friesian (AF), Angus × Holstein Friesian-Jersey cross (AK) and Angus × Jersey (AJ). Therefore, steers in this experiment were of 4 breed crosses: HH × AA (n = 25), HH × AF (n = 21), HH × AK (n = 11) and HH × AJ (n = 21). The Angus breed was selected to produce the crossbred cows as it represents a breed commonly used in the New Zealand dairy industry for natural mating to produce crossbred calves and is the predominant breed for beef breeding cows in New Zealand. The Hereford breed was used as the sire for the steers in this experiment to represent an early-maturing beef breed.