Body Measurements and their Use in Predicting Carcass Characteristics in Friesian Calves PDF

Keywords

calves, body measurements, carcass characteristics

Abstract

Twenty seven Friesian calves one year of age were used in the present experiment to investigate the relationships between body measurements viz. body weight, body length, wither and hip height, chest girth, paunch girth, thigh girth, shoulder and hip width, and paunch depth and carcass characteristics viz. hot weight, cold weight, round, loin, flanks, ribs, short plate, chuck, brisket, shank, neck, dressing percentage, fore-quarter percentage and hind-quarter percentage. The result showed significant (p< 0.05) correlation coefficients between most of the traits. Stepwise multiple regression procedure was adopted to determine variables important in predicting carcass traits. It has been concluded that body measurements, especially body weight, body length, chest girth and wither height could be employed to predicts live weight, carcass and their partitions.