PREDICTING THE PERFORMANCE AND CARCASE CHARACTERISTICS OF FEEDLOT HEIFERS USING BASELINE ANIMAL MEASUREMENTS

摘要

Optimising cost of production inputs particularly influences the profitability of the cattle feedlot industry. One area of potential financial gain and cost-effectiveness would be the ability to select and sort cattle into optimum feed programs and marketing groups, with such animal selection at initial feedlot entry requiring the use of prediction systems for animal performance and carcase parameters (Perry and Fox 1997). Data collation from domestic trade heifer feedlot programs, conducted at a research facility in Central Queensland, provided a dataset to investigate the suitability of measurements at feedlot induction to predict animal performance and achieve desired carcase market compliance. This paper provides preliminary observations using the measurements at induction into feedlot of hip height (HH; visual, measured in 25 mm increments) and body condition score (BCS; assessed as 1 thin to 9 fat).