How to calculate target slaughter weights for your beef cattle finishing program

Picture Credit score: viZZZual.com, Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Beef cattle are thought-about completed and prepared for slaughter after they have ample fats of their meat to make their beef tender and flavorful. Ending cattle is all concerning the fats.

However how are you aware when your beef cattle are fats sufficient?

In a really perfect world you’d have the ability to x-ray your reside cattle to see, on a microscopic scale, when their beef has ample fats cells to make it tender and flavorful. Sadly that is not sensible.

Fortunately there may be a neater manner because of research that correlate body measurement (bone construction) and slaughter weight. In different phrases, you may determine the best slaughter weight of your beef cattle just by measuring their hip top after which utilizing that measurement to search for the corresponding goal slaughter weight on a desk.

This straightforward approach lets you know the best slaughter weight of each steer, heifer, cow or bull in your farm earlier than you ship them away to be slaughtered!

This method is the core of each profitable beef ending operation, no matter whether or not the cattle are completed on grass or on grain and no matter whether or not the cattle are completed in a feedlot or out on vast open pastures.

On this article I clarify precisely methods to measure your cattle and I provide the look-up tables to seek out the goal slaughter weight for each particular person animal in your farm. After which I reply some essential questions on methods to combine this system into your cattle ending technique, each for grass ending and grain ending packages.

Body scoring

Body scoring is solely a manner of categorizing beef cattle from smallest to largest based mostly on their measurement (hip top). Body scores are assigned on a scale from 1 to 9, with 1 being the smallest and 9 being the largest-framed cattle. There’s a goal slaughter weight corresponding to every body rating.

For instance, a 9-month outdated steer with a hip top of 44.3 inches has a body rating of 4. This steer might be prepared for slaughter when it reaches 1100 lbs. At 16 months this identical steer can have a hip top of 49.6 inches, however its body rating (4) and goal slaughter weight (1100 lbs) will nonetheless be the identical.

Against this, a 16-month outdated steer with a hip top of 55.6 inches might be categorized as a body rating of seven. It’s going to subsequently have a goal slaughter weight of 1400 lbs.

And 16-month outdated heifer with hip top of 52.8 inches may also have a body rating of seven. Her goal slaughter weight might be 1300 lbs (there are separate lookup tables for female and male cattle).

I believe you see the sample. Whereas hip top adjustments with age, body rating usually doesn’t. Combining hip top and age lets you assign a selected body rating to any animal so you may know prematurely, whereas it’s nonetheless rising, what the goal slaughter weight of that animal ought to be.

No extra guessing. No extra eye balling. You simply measure your cattle and bingo, your goal slaughter weights.

(Disclosure: I get commissions for purchases made utilizing Amazon hyperlinks in my submit.)

With this system, all you want is an easy cattle weigh scale to inform you in case your cattle have reached their goal slaughter weight and are able to slaughter.

That is why the #1 device you need to personal in case you plan on ending cattle for slaughter is a weigh scale. The best and least expensive answer is to mount a set of weigh bars under your cattle squeeze^{#CommissionsEarned}, just like the weigh bars proven within the picture on the appropriate, so you may weigh your cattle earlier than you ship them to the butcher.

Goal Slaughter Weight by Body Rating

First, listed below are the goal slaughter weights by body rating:

Now let’s take a look at methods to assign the right body rating to your beef cattle:

Methods to convert hip top and age to border rating:

The straightforward premise behind body scoring is that each one beef cattle have a predictable development curve.

The chart under exhibits how hip top adjustments amongst steers from 5 months to 21 months of age. There are 5 curves on the graph, one every for cattle with body scores 3 by way of 7.

To seek out the body rating for any particular person animal you merely discover the intersection between hip top and age on the chart. Whichever development curve this level is closest to, that’s its body rating.

Cattle usually don’t change body scores of their lifetime. If a heifer has a body rating of 4 at seven months of age, she is going to nonetheless be a body rating of 4 when she reaches twenty one months of age, and she is going to proceed to be a body rating of 4 to the day she dies of outdated age. That consistency is why we will predict goal slaughter weights based mostly on body scores.

For ease of use these curves are usually become easy look-up tables, that are proven under. Female and male cattle have barely totally different development charges, which is why there are separate look-up tables for female and male cattle.

Body rating desk for male cattle

Body rating desk for feminine cattle

To make use of the tables to seek out the body rating of any particular person animal in your herd, decide the row similar to its age (in months) after which slide throughout till you discover its measured hip top (in inches). Then take a look at the highest of that column to seek out its body rating quantity. That is the body rating quantity you employ to search for target slaughter weight on the previous set of tables firstly of the article.

Method for measuring hip top

To measure your cattle’s hip top, merely lay a carpenter’s degree throughout their backs instantly above their hip bones (hooks), then measure the space all the way down to floor degree (the cattle should be standing on degree floor).

One of the best time to take hip top measurements is everytime you already occur to have your cattle within the corral, corresponding to on vaccination day.

Q&A about body scores and goal slaughter weights

And now for some solutions to some generally requested questions on methods to apply this system to your beef cattle ending technique:

Do grass completed and grain completed beef animals have the identical goal ending weights?

Sure.

One of many largest misconceptions about grass ending is that there are totally different guidelines concerned when ending cattle on grass versus grain. There aren’t.

Goal slaughter weights do not change simply since you change what the cattle eat. Nor will cattle be prepared for slaughter simply because it’s autumn or simply as a result of the cattle have been on a ending pasture or ending ration for 60, 90, or 120 days. None of that issues.

No matter what the cattle are consuming (grass-based vs grain-based ending food plan) or the place they reside (in a feedlot or out on open pasture), they nonetheless want to achieve the identical goal weight, based mostly on their top, with a view to have ample muscle and fats and be tender and flavorful when they’re slaughtered.

How lengthy does it take to achieve the goal completed weight?

How wealthy is your pasture grass or feed ration? What number of kilos will your cattle acquire every day utilizing your explicit feeding or pasture administration technique? What number of kilos do your cattle nonetheless want to realize between their present weight and their goal ending weight?

I’ve a variety of body scores in my cattle herd. How do I schedule my slaughter dates?

A variety of body scores signifies that you’ll have a slaughter season that stretches out over a very long time, from the time the lightest cattle attain their goal weight till the heaviest attain theirs, which will be many months later. When grass ending in seasonal northern climates this may imply overwintering a part of the herd to complete the larger-framed cattle the following season when the grass returns.

Bigger feedlots are likely to kind their calves on arrival to create teams of calves with the identical age and body measurement. This makes it simpler for them to regulate feed rations because the calves develop since day by day weight good points might be very comparable for all calves in the identical group. Every group is usually weighed to watch progress and slaughtered when the group reaches the goal slaughter weight. This sorting permits the feedlot to schedule a single slaughter date for the whole group since all of the calves within the group will presumably attain their goal slaughter weight at roughly the identical time.

Grass ending packages, then again, usually maintain their cattle as a single giant group (or in as few teams as potential) to make their pasture administration less complicated and extra environment friendly. They’ve a method in place (i.e. alleyways of their pasture structure like these utilized by this example grass farm plan) to simply kind particular person cattle out of the herd with out having to convey the whole herd to the corral each time a number of animals are able to go to market.

(Disclosure: I get commissions for purchases made utilizing Amazon hyperlinks in my submit.)

Weights can initially be eyeballed on pasture, however when the chosen cattle attain the corral they need to be measured and weighed on the cattle scale^{#CommissionEarned} to be completely certain they’ve reached their goal slaughter weight earlier than getting loaded on the vans to go to market.

Do all cattle from the identical breed have the identical body rating and goal slaughter weight?

No.

Cattle from inside the identical breed are usually equally sized (it’s unlikely that you will note a body rating of two and eight in the identical breed), however there’ll nonetheless be particular person variations in top and thus a spread of body scores. That is why it’s a must to get out and measure your herd.

Do I must remeasure my herd yearly?

Except you alter your cattle genetics, the vary of body scores (and the vary of goal ending weights from smallest to largest) will stay very comparable from 12 months to 12 months and you will not must remeasure yearly.

You may know that your smallest cattle want to achieve one weight, your largest cattle one other, and the remaining should be someplace in between.

However as quickly as you introduce a unique breed, you will must remeasure. You may additionally must remeasure each few years in case the genetics of your breeding inventory begins to float in the direction of bigger or smaller sizes (take a look at how a lot bigger Black Angus cattle at the moment are than they had been 40 years in the past!).

And you probably have a mixed breed cattle herd, you will need to re-measure much more ceaselessly (presumably even yearly) for the reason that extra breeds that contribute to your general cattle herd, the extra variation there might be in particular person hip heights and body scores!

And you need to at all times remeasure in case you make any giant adjustments to your herd genetics, like in case you add new bulls or substitute heifers from a unique breed.

How actual is this system?

It’s an estimation approach.

Even after your beef cattle have reached their goal weight, you continue to want to make use of your judgement to make sure that they appear fats sufficient earlier than sending them to slaughter.

Some of the helpful instruments to make that judgement is body condition scoring – a visible approach for judging cattle fatness – as a technique to verify that your cattle are fats sufficient to slaughter. Cattle ought to be between a physique situation rating of 5 and seven earlier than they go to slaughter, by no means much less!

The nearer the cattle are to a 7, the upper the meat will grade. However a BCS better than 7 might be moving into overweight territory. That further fats is simply going to be trimmed into the waste bin.

Nevertheless, simply do not forget that goal slaughter weight comes earlier than physique situation. Your cattle are NOT able to slaughter at a a lot lighter weight simply because their physique situation rating is at a 7. However as soon as they attain that slaughter weight (plus or minus a number of kilos), then use your judgement of fatness (physique situation scoring) to make that ultimate resolution of whether or not the cattle are able to go to market.

What if my hip top measurement is someplace between two body scores?

Assign body scores utilizing halves, thirds, or quarters (whichever is your desire), and make the suitable changes to the weights on the target slaughter weight by frame score tables.

Are body scores related to all beef cattle breeds?

Sure.

Does the goal ending weight and body rating approach work for all cattle breeds?

Belgian Blue Bull

Picture Credit score: Mastiff, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Sure…

Nevertheless there are a number of uncommon exceptions such because the double-muscled cattle breeds like Belgian Blue and Piedmontese cattle. I believe the photograph on the appropriate speaks for itself… When you have one in all these breeds, ask your cattle breeder affiliation to give you goal end weights to your cattle based mostly on body rating.

Do body scores change with age?

Body scores usually stay the identical all through the cattle’s lifetime, although this isn’t a assure.

That is why prudent cattle ending operations at all times re-measure their cattle the final time they weigh them earlier than slaughter, even when they have already got a body rating project from whereas the cattle had been nonetheless youthful.

Moreover, some slow-growing cattle breeds don’t observe the anticipated cattle development curve, as is the case with some (however not all) Scottish Highland Cattle. Their body rating will change as they develop.

And an excessive meals scarcity can even quickly stunt development and throw development curves out of whack.

Does the correlation between body scoring and goal slaughter weights additionally work for mature bulls and cows?

Sure. I’ve included the goal slaughter weight look-up desk for mature bulls and mature cows just under the table used for steers and heifers. And the frame score look-up tables for each female and male cattle lengthen proper to mature physique measurement.

Is body rating and goal slaughter weight all it takes to make sure that beef is tender and flavorful?

No. Body rating and goal slaughter weight is just one of many many standards that it’s a must to take note of with a view to find yourself with tender and flavorful beef.

A few of the different particulars that it’s a must to take note of with a view to produce tender flavorful beef are:

Cattle MUST be gaining weight proper till the day they’re slaughtered.

Cattle will need to have constant day by day diet all through the ending course of and should not be allowed to quickly drop extra pounds any time within the month or extra earlier than they’re slaughtered, in any other case they’ll have inadequate microscopic intramuscular fats. Slaughtering both after the cattle run out of grass within the fall or through the winter when cattle are coasting alongside with out weight good points will not work. As quickly as cattle start tapping their physique fats reserves (even just a bit bit) to make up for calorie shortfalls of their feed, their beef might be powerful, dry, and flavorless even when their slaughter weight was on the right track. It could takes weeks and even months to refill these essential fats reserves if weight good points quickly stall or reverse.

You need to remove or reduce all sources of cattle stress each through the ending course of and on the best way to the slaughterhouse. This consists of dealing with stress, illness, environmental stress (i.e. warmth stress, parasites, and so forth.), and dietary stress (i.e. protein, vitality, minerals, or vitamin deficiencies).

(Disclosure: I get commissions for purchases made utilizing Amazon hyperlinks in my submit.)

Abstract

The correlation between hip top (body rating) and slaughter weight is without doubt one of the core pillars of any cattle ending program, no matter whether or not you might be grass ending or grain-finishing your cattle. It is a easy 1-2-3 course of:

Go measure your cattle’s hip heights to seek out their body scores.
Use the lookup tables to seek out their goal slaughter weights based mostly on these body scores.
And weigh your cattle earlier than you ship them to the slaughterhouse to verify they’ve certainly reached their goal slaughter weights.

In the event you make body scores a central a part of your cattle ending technique, you’ll be effectively in your technique to producing constant, tender, flavorful beef!

Share your cattle ending ideas!

Do you’ve gotten another cattle ending ideas that you just use to make sure that your beef is tender and flavorful? Share them within the feedback field under!

In the event you loved this text, please use the “Like” buttons under to share it on social media. And if you would like to be notified after I launch future cattle farming articles, join my free email notifications or observe me on Facebook or Twitter.