CARCASS PERFORMANCE OF HEIFERS AND BULLS OF DIFFERENT BREEDS

This study aimed to evaluate and compare performance of body weight (BW) at slaughter, hot carcass weight (HCW) and dressing-out percentages (DP%) of bulls and heifers of different breeds. The data from heifers (84) and bulls (90) for sex; and for breeds of Simmental (58), Holstein (62) and their crosses (SxH) (54) were used as 174 animals in total. BWs of each breed were 486.5, 485.6 and 462.2 for Holstein, Simmental and crosses, respectively. BWs of sex were 482 kg for both bulls and heifers. There were significant differences (P<0.05) in HCW and DP% between sexes. HCW of bulls and heifers were 257.68 and 245.58 kg, respectively. DP% for bulls and heifers were 53.68 % and 51.15 % respectively. There were significant differences (P<0.05) in HCW and DP% between breeds. HCW and DP% of Simmentals were greater than the other breeds while they were not significant (P>0.05) for Holstein and Crosses. There was no significant (P>0.05) breed and sex interaction for HCW and DP%. Simmental bulls and heifers were heavier than those of other breeds for HCW and DP%. It was observed that the performance of bulls and heifers of Crosses were better than Holstein bulls and heifers performance.