Characteristics of cattle slaughtered within the Xth Region (Chile) according to the terms stated by the official chilean standards for classification and carcass grading

Abstract

The present study describes the characteristics of 114.666 cattle slaughtered during 1994 in the 22 slaughterhouses functioning within the X^th Region and the corresponding carcasses produced according to the terms of the official chilean standards for cattle classification and carcass grading.

The following distribution of classes was found, based on age by dental chronometry (only milk teeth present=DL, levelled central milk teeth=DL*, number of permanent incisors present=2-8D, presence of levelled permanent second medials=8D*) and sex: 40.3% of young steers (DL* or 2D); 16.1% of heifers (DL* or 2D), 1.5% of young bulls (DL*); 10.6% of steers (4-6D); 7.6% of young cows (4-6D); 9.0% of adult cows (8D); 6.1% of old cows (8D*), 0.0% of bulls castrated as adults (2-8D*), 2.4% of bulls (2-8D*), 4.2% of oxen (8D or 8D*) and 2.2% of calves (DL). The distribution of the carcasses within the official grading categories (V-A-C-U-N-O) was as follows: V = 55.9%; A = 12.7%; C = 4.6%; U = 15.2%; N = 10.4% and O = 1.2%.

The proportion of carcasses falling into grades 0 (none), 1(light), 2 (abundant) and 3 (excess ) of subcutaneous fat cover was 10.1%; 78.3%; 10.2% and 1.4%, respectively. Some 7.7% of carcasses presented a degree of bruising; of the latter, 4.8% were classified as degree 1 (affecting only subcutaneous tissues), 2.1% as degree 2 (affecting subcutaneous and muscular tissue) and 0.8% as degree 3 (affecting also bone).

It was concluded that within the X^th Region, predominantly young cattle are slaughtered, especially young steers and heifers, producing carcasses with a light fat cover and graded as V. Only a small proportion of carcasses presented bruising serious enough (degree 2 or 3) to degrade the carcasses.