Carcass characteristics of draught cattle released for beef in Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Most cattle used for beef production in Ethiopia are Zebu breeds. Usually released for beef when they are aged for plowing and in poor body condition. However, there is little available information on carcass yield and percentage earned from these cattle. Therefore, the study was conducted to evaluate the carcass yield and the percentage of cattle released for beef after used in draught power. This study used 280 heads of male indigenous draught cattle released for beef. Each cattle were randomly measured for carcass and noncarcass components. Body weight was recorded as animals arrived. Hot carcasses were weighed and cold carcasses were estimated at 0.98 of the hot carcass weight. Dressing proportions were calculated from the ratio of hot carcass weight to slaughter weight. Descriptive statistics for carcass yield, edible and offal components were analyzed by SPSS. The average slaughter weight, hot carcass weight, dressing and shrinkage percentage recorded in this study was 247.93+5.27, 90.98+ 2.11, 36.98+0.94 and 0.74+0.02, respectively. The amount of total deboned lean meat was 60.38kg (24.35% of the slaughter body weight). The price of live animals and the amount of carcass and other edible parts attained from it, is not worthy of comparison and there was a loss of 402.66+ 0.29 Birr per each cattle. Therefore, draught cattle released for beef after draught power should be fattened either by farmers or beef farm to recover their body weight loss due to agricultural work load.

Carcass and Meat Characteristics of Hararghe Highland Bull after Draught Work Service

“…Some studies suggest that exercise can lead to an increase in the size and weight of the heart in animals due to cardiac hypertrophy [47] [48] [49]. The heart weight in the current study was similar to that reported by Mengistu et al [26], who reported 0.7 ± 0.05 kg for Ethiopian highland Zebu bulls, but lower than the heart weight of Zebu breeds (1.033 kg) [50], and oxen released for beef after draught service (1.01 kg) [27].…”

“…Despite, Ethiopia's agricultural system relies on animal draught power [24] [25], there was no scientific evidence concerning how much using animals for draught power can affect the physical characteristics of carcasses specific to the Hararghe highland breed, with the exception of Mengistu et al [26], who have attempted to address the carcass characteristic concern with limited variables in Ethiopian highland Zebu. Ewonetu and Ashenafi [27] suggested that assessing carcass characteristics of cattle following draught service is crucial, to enhance the productivity of the carcass for economic reasons [28] in the Ethiopia context. Thus, the objective of the study was to evaluate the impact of draught service on carcass characteristics, meat output potential and its distribution along prime cuts in Hararghe highland bulls fed on a net energy requirement basis.…”

Priority landscapes for tree-based restoration in Ethiopia

“…For the former, we used values of crop production in the HarvestChoice database (International Food Policy Research Institute, 2020) to estimate the net present value (NPV) of prioritized planning units over a 40-year period, applying a discount rate of 5% and assuming a profit margin of 20% (Strassburg et al, 2020). For pastureland, the opportunity cost was estimated based on cattle stocking levels in the Gridded Livestock of the World v2.0 dataset (Gilbert et al, 2018), combined with average animal ages, weights and values of carcases at slaughter in Ethiopia (Senbeta & Megersa, 2019;Tefera et al, 2019). Again, the NPV for each prioritized planning unit was estimated over a 40-year horizon.…”