Slaughter and Carcass Traits of Young Brown Swiss Bulls Raised in Semi-Intensive System

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate some slaughter and carcass traits of young Brown Swiss bulls raised under semi-intensive system. Young Brown Swiss bulls were slaughtered at 24 months of age. The average slaughter weight, hot carcass weight, chilling carcass weight, hot dressing percentage and chilling dressing percentage were 328.40, 183.44, 181.64 kg, 55.99 and 55.11%, respectively. Carcass length, chest depth, rump length, rump circumference, ann length and ann circumference were 151.52, 63.70, 70.22, 70.37, 59.80 cm and 52.57%, respectively. Correlation coefficients for slaughter characteristics and carcass measurements of young Brown Swiss bulls were obtained. In general, positive correlation coefficients were observed for slaughter characteristics. Positive correlation coefficients for slaughter characteristic were high and significant. Only correlations between heart weight with spleen weight and all slaughter traits with internal fat weight were negative and not significant. Significant negative correlation coefficients were found between rump length with chest depth, arm length with rump circumference, ann circumference with rump circumference, arm length with arm circumference from carcass measurements. Overall, the results of the present study suggest that young Brown Swiss bulls can be used in beef production in semi-intensive system and carcass evaluation on different slaughtering weights in different breeding systems can be recommend.