Predicting carcass weight, empty body gain, and retained energy of Zebu beef cattle

摘要

A multi-study analysis was conducted aiming to estimate and validate new equations to predict carcass weight (CW), empty body weight gain (EBG), and retained energy (RE) of Zebu cattle. A database composed of 1,748 observations of bulls, steers, and heifers of different breeds (Zebu, beef crossbred, and daily crossbred) was used for generating the new equations. The evaluation of new equations was performed using an independent database composed of 137 observations. Validation analyses were performedby using the model evaluation system. We suggest the following equations to estimate CW, EBG, and RE of Zebu cattle: CW (kg) = -11.03 + S + ((0.6094 + G + B) x SBW); EBG = 0.04422 + 1.4664 * CG; RE = 0.08159 * EQEBW075 x CG0-7768, where S = slaughter plant effect, if commercial = -10.98, if experimental =0; G = gender effect, if steer = 0, if bull = 0.008169 and if heifer = -0.00612; B = genotype effect, if Zebu = 0, if dairy crossbreds = -0.03301 and if beef crossbreds = -0.01595; SBW = shrunk body weight; CG = carcass gain; EQEBW = equivalent empty body weight. Equations accurately and precisely estimated CW, EBG, and RE of Zebu and Zebu-cross cattle in the validation dataset.