The First author: Li Junya, Researcher, mainly engaged in the research of beef cattle breeding and genomic selection technology.

Variety Profile:

Huaxi cattle is a new breed of specialized beef cattle with the breeding material of Simmental cattle, Mongolian cattle, Sanhe cattle and Charolais cattle, through crossbreeding and continuous selection and breeding, forming a new breed with characters of “three high and two wide”. It validated by the National Livestock Genetic Resources Committee in 2021. Huaxi cattle have outstanding performance of daily weight gain, slaughter rate and net meat rate, as well as 1.36 kg/day of daily gain during the 12-18 months old with the highest value of 1.86 kg/day, 62.4% of slaughter rate and 53.9% of net meat rate. Its main traits are comparable to the mainstream beef cattle breeds in developed countries of the beef industry and its gain rate is higher than the level of Australian Simmental cattle. At present, the size of the breeding herd is more than 20,000 heads with the core herds of 3,602 females, promoted breeding bulls of 599, and the crossbred improvement herd of approximate 2 million heads.