Evaluation of dietary beta-agonist on production performance and carcass of beef cattle: a meta-analysis

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the use of beta-agonist on beef cattle by integrating data from various experiments and analyzing the data by a meta-analysis method. A total of 42 articles were used to build a database in which the articles reported dietary addition of beta-agonist on performance and carcass of beef cattle. Treatments were grouped into control (without beta-agonist) and with beta-agonist addition. The treatments were considered as fixed effects whereas different experiments were considered as random effects. Model statistics used was P-value in order to distinguish between the two groups, and the P-value less than 0.05 was considered to be significant. Results showed that dietary beta-agonist addition increased average daily gain and gain to feed ratio of beef cattle (P<0.001). Beta-agonist elevated hot carcass weight (P<0.001) and dressing percentage (P<0.01), but had no effect on fat thickness. Longissimus muscle area increased (P<0.001) while marbling score decreased (P<0.05) due to the addition of beta-agonist. The additive positively influenced Warner-Bratzler shear force of carcass (P<0.001) but had no effect on its pH value. In conclusion, beta-agonist favourably affects production performance and carcass property of beef cattle.