Patent ID: 7927800

Claim:
A method for identifying a bovine animal having a higher ultrasound backfat (UB), a higher ultrasound LM area (ULM), a higher gradefat, and a lower quality grade (QG), as compared to the general population of bovine animals, comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining a biological sample from said bovine animal, wherein the sample contains a quantity of nucleic acids sufficient to enable genotyping analysis of a bovine fibroblast growth factor 8 (“FGF8”) gene; (b) detecting in said nucleic acids the presence of two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which together comprise a haplotype (HAP), wherein the HAP comprises a C at positions corresponding to position 92 of SEQ ID NO:3 and position 64 of SEQ ID NO:4, in the same allele; and (c) correlating the presence of the nucleic acid content of (b) with higher UB, higher ULM, higher gradefat, and lower QG, thereby identifying said bovine animal.