Carcass Characteristics of Brahman Crossbred Cattle in Indonesian Feedlot

Carcass traits are important measures in beef cattle production, expressing economic efficiency and meat quality.For those reasons, carcass traits of Brahman crossbred cattle in Indonesian feedlot of different fattening period were assessed.Thirty-three Brahman crossbred steers and thirty-three Brahman crossbred heifers with initial body weight of 399 -463 kg were fed same diet and reared for fattening in different period as treatment, i.e. 1 month, 2 months and 2.5 months for slaughter.The diet contained: dry matter 84.7%, crude protein 12,2%, and GE 3,709 kcal/kg DM.At the end of each fattening period, 11 steers and 11 heifers were weighed, rested for 12 hours and then slaughtered in commercial local abattoir in West Java for carcass evaluation, including weight of carcass (dressing percentage), its composition (bone, meat and fat percentage, meat bone ratio), and meat quality (marbling fat, meat and fat color).Carcass was divided into two same parts by longitudinally cutting from cranial to dorsal part.A part of the carcass was separated for its component (bone, meat, and fat), then, each component was weighed.Cutting of carcass sample was taken between the 12 th -13 th ribs for marbling, meat and fat color observation.The data were subjected to analysis of variance of Nested Randomized Block Design and Least Square Differences using exell programe.The results showed that sex had no effect on carcass charateristics except that bone weight was higher in the steers.Based on days on feed the highest percentage of carcass in steer and heifer were reached after 2.5 months of day on feed (56.60% and56.3%).Meat percentage in the steers and heifers after1 month and 2 months were the same (75%).Similar values were found in the percentage of bone in the steers and heifers after 2 months fattening periods (14.4 and14.8%,respectively).However, the percentage of fat in heifers was higher (9.3%) than in the steers (8.2%) after 2.5 months fattening periods.From these results it can be concluded that the percentage of bone varied, while the percentage of meat and fat increased as days on feed increased.