British Blue Genetics

The British Blue is a specialist double muscling beef breed, there is only one other breed that shares the double muscling trait and that’s the Piedmontese, both of these specialist beef breeds covert their feed into lean muscle and produce beef with low-fat content.

Breed plan provides Genetic evaluations of the breed which are extremely popular in the UK with dairy beef inseminations amounting to 45% from British Blues.

British Blue Characteristics

The British Blue is a medium-sized, long-bodied specialist beef breed, with a sloping rump and prominent double muscling. Around 180,000 calves are sired by the breed each year.

To improve the calving rate of this continental breed and to lower calving difficulty they can be crossbred with Holsteins or Friesians.

The British Blue has the myostatin gene mutation which makes it have a 20% higher muscle yield than most other cattle breeds. The breed’s gene lacks myostatin which is a protein that inhibits excessive muscle development, so as their muscles lack the growth inhibitor they have higher muscle yield and leaner meat.

The crossbreed which originates from Belgium soon became popular with the UK beef cattle breeders for their docility, fine-boned, double-muscled, with tremendous growth potential and high yielding carcass.

The breed is a cross of the Dutch Friesian and English Shorthorn and is renowned for its high feed conversion ratio and lower feed requirement for high weight gain. They need higher protein feeds due to their increased muscle and high-energy (concentrated) feeds are crucial for finishing.

British Blue Statistics

• High yielding carcass
• Double muscling
• Docile temperament
• Feed conversion ratio is high
• Lean beef
• Lean bodied
• High growth rate

Breed Society: http://www.britishbluecattle.org/