4OO MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL EXP. STA., RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. II 



would lead to the same conclusions. It is not uncommon to find 

 the body fat of Jersey and Guernsey cows with a high yellow color. 

 This has led to a general belief that this phenomenon is a character- 

 istic of only these breeds of cows, As a matter of fact butchers 

 and also the consumer look with disfavor upon beef from these 

 animals on account of this high color of the fat. Although Table 

 3, above, shows very clearly that the color of the body fat of Jersey 

 cows is as much dependent upon the feed as the color of the milk 

 fat, it was nevertheless important to study the coloration of the 

 body fat, of the different breeds, which had accumulated under ordi- 

 nary conditions. In this way the normal breed relation could be 

 determined. 



Only a few animals were available for this study. Besides the 

 data for the two Jersey cows given in Table 2, we have the colori- 

 metric study of the body fat of one Jersey and 3 Holstein cows. 

 The data from these animals is given in Table 4. 



TABLE 4. RELATION OF BREED TO COLOR OF BODY PAT. 



The most important points presented in this table are the wide 

 difference between the color of the fats of Holstein Cow No. 207 

 and the other two Holstein cows ; and the wide difference between 

 the color of the inside and outside fats of Holstein Cow No. 207. 

 The first point is possibly due to an individual characteristic of Cow 

 No. 207, although it is not known under what conditions the fat 

 was formed. It should be stated in connection with the data of 

 Cow No. 226 that the animal died in parturition, and the reason 

 so few samples of fat are recorded is due to the fact that the animal 

 had no fat on the body at those particular places. In regard to the 



