Meat Production Performance and Principal Component Analysis of Larima Yak (Bos grunniens)

In order to study the traits related to meat production performance of Larima yaks (Bos grunniens). Six healthy adult yaks, half of male and half of female, were selected to determine the carcass size and body mass indexes, and data mining analyses were carried out after conducting slaughtering tests. The results showed that except for carcass meat yield and meat to bone ratio, all the indexes of Larima male yaks were extremely significantly higher than those of female yaks (P < 0.01), among which the coefficients of variation of the indexes of thigh muscle thickness, head weight, spleen weight, lung weight, wrinkled stomach weight, and flap stomach weight of the Larima females were larger; correlation analyses showed that body height was significantly and positively correlated (P < 0.05) with chest circumference, carcass length, carcass depth, carcass breast depth, carcass hind leg circumference, head weight, liver weight, spleen weight, kidney weight, net meat weight, carcass weight, and was highly significantly and positively correlated (P < 0.01) with heart weight, total stomach weight, and pre-slaughter weight; carcass length and carcass depth were significantly and positively correlated (P < 0.05) with carcass breast depth, carcass hind leg circumference, head weight, tail weight, and total stomach weight, and were significantly positively correlated (P < 0.01) with heart weight, ante-mortem weight, net meat weight, and bone weight; total stomach weight, ante-mortem weight, and net meat weight were significantly positively correlated (P < 0.05) with bone weight, and were significantly positively correlated (P < 0.01) with carcass weight; net meat percentage was significantly positively correlated (P < 0.01) with slaughter rate; and carcass meat yield was significantly positively correlated (P < 0.01) with meat to bone ratio. The correlation data indicated that all the indexes of Larima male yaks were better than female yaks, and the correlation data indicated that there were different degrees of correlation between the indexes of body size of Larima yaks and the slaughter performance, and the principal component analysis (PCA) screened out three principal components with the cumulative contribution of 97.553%, and their slaughter performance, meat production performance, and body size development were the three important factors in the selection and breeding.