Carcass Weights

Nutcase · 29-01-2011 08:20PM #1

A question that someone here might be ablw 2 help me out with if an animal puts on say for instance 1kg of liveweight a day how much of this is then converted into carcass weight? The animals are young bulls and all continentals.

I was thinking that if they put on 1kg a day and a 56% killout then they would only be gaining 0.56kg (CW)??

pakalasa · 29-01-2011 08:29PM

Ya, what you are saying is right. At 56% killout then 560g carsass is put on for 1 Kg liveweight. The problem is that KO% will be changing. Say if you intensive feed on concentrates for the last 6 weeks then the animal will put on more muscle weight than bone etc, so the KO% will be improoving. If that makes sense.

Nutcase · 29-01-2011 08:57PM

yeah i think i get ye wot ur sayin.. we weighed some of ours and they were only killin out around 56% we have some that killed out up to 58% but most are only around 56%.

So a factory price of €5/kg is needed if they wer only gaining 0.50kg CW a day with feed costs €2.50/day/animal..
Things really dont look good!!

pakalasa · 29-01-2011 09:49PM

Exactly, finishing cattle is a big numbers game with tight margins.

Nutcase · 29-01-2011 10:09PM

Seems so thanks for that anyways.. Factories have pulled the price of beef this week and everyone is talking about there being a shortage of cattle i have yet to see any benefit to the beef farmers!!

Carcass Weights

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