Because of weather conditions, beef cattle often experience periods of inadequate nutrition while grazing native range. Many times this period of under-nutrition coincides with some point in gestation. Alterations in nutrient flow to the fetus can potentially have permanent effects on physiology and growth of the offspring (Godfrey & Barker, 2000), which is called fetal programming.
Gestational under-nutrition has been shown to increase adipose tissue deposition in livestock species (Bispham et al., 2005; Edwards et al., 2005). However, a limited amount of research has focused on maternal energy restriction during mid-gestation in beef cattle, a period when both muscle and fat development are occurring (Du et al., 2010). Impacts to these developmental processes could lead to alterations in fat and muscle tissue growth, animal performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of beef offspring.