Abstract:

The study was designed to evaluate meat quality traits and determine serum biochemical indices of Qinghai
yak using a NSA-400 type automatic biochemical analyzer. The results show that a significant increase in meat color and
cooking yield was found for yak meat in comparison with the meat of the local yellow cattle (P ＜ 0.05). Moreover, serum
GOT and LDH activities as well as urea nitrogen, K+ and Ca2+ contents of yak were also significantly higher than those of
yellow cattle (P ＜ 0.05). The correlations between AKP activity and pH at 1 h postmortem (pH1), between LDH activity
and marble score, between HDL content and cooking yield, between serum GOT activity, urea nitrogen level or creatinine
level and pH at 24 h postmortem (pH24), and between Mg2+ content and water loss rate were significantly negative, whereas a
significantly positive correlation was observed between LDH activity and cooking yield.

Key words: yak, meat quality, serum, biochemical indices