P3- Although selective breeding enables farmers to incur a lot of money from the masses of meat on

the Belgian Blue Cattle, it has many negative implications on the health of the animal. The most

common of these is the cause of dystocia which incurs calving difficulties which has led to the

extraordinary high amount of caesareans being carried out. Because Belgian Blues have been bred

for specific characteristics, such as double muscling they cannot give have a healthy natural birth,

because they are just too large. For pure bred Belgian Blue Cattle, caesarean sections are used

particularly often as the farmers do not want to risk losing any of their valuable cattle. However the

problem is that cattle are physiologically limited …show more content…
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enlargement of the calves tongue affects its ability to suckle and if it can’t drink, it could affect its

survival causing it to die. Its ability to suckle and survive is also affected by prognathism, where the

top jaw is shorter than the lower jaw, which has also been caused by the selective breeding for

double muscling. Belgium Blue cattle can also struggle with cardiac issues, which sometimes leads to

their death, obviously affecting its ability to survive. Also less development in the Belgium Blue’s

respiratory muscles can cause them respiratory distress or death (again affecting their health and

survival) because they cannot take in a sufficient amount of oxygen. Because of selective breeding

for double muscling, it is suspected that calves who have died within 48 hours or birth, died because

they has heart and lung deficiencies. The selection for muscle mass has resulted in the Belgium Blues

cardio-respiratory being underdeveloped has caused them to have a heart of a 10-15% smaller

volume compared to conventional animals. So it is very easy for the calf to have dysphoea or a

shortness of breath, because their large body has such a high demand for