Características de carcaça e qualidade da carne de vacas de descarte submetidas a duas velocidades de ganho de peso

Abstract

In Brazil, the exploitation of animals is done mostly under grazing conditions, facing alternating periods of abundance and scarcity of food, the "dry" weight loss occurs and the "waters" gain at high speed. This rapid gain is known as compensatory gain. The effect of the compensatory gain are variable and depend on the intensity and time of food restriction, as well as the quality of the feedback. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance and carcass traits of cows discard under the effect of different speed of weight gain in feedlot. We used 30 Nellore cull cows, with a mean age of 8.5 years, undergoing two speeds replacement of body weight live in confinement: slow weight gain, perspective diet of an average gain of 600g/dia (n = 18) and rapid weight gain, perspective diet to gain average 1.200g/dia (n = 12). The animals were slaughtered serially in the range of 51, 74 and 104 days of confinement. The experimental design was completely randomized in a factorial 2 x 3 incomplete (two earned speeds: slow and fast of confinement and 3 time: 51, 74 and 104 days). There was interaction between time of confinement and treatment for body weight and body score, indicating that the curves of weight gain and increase in body condition behaved differently depending on the treatments. There were differences (P <0.05) among treatments for carcass yield, percentage of liver, tongue, udder and head. We also observed significant differences (P <0.05) for colorimetry of meat and fat, for almost all variables studied. However, the feedlot regime to accelerate the gain weight at the time of termination may be an interesting alternative, even for adult animals, as it increases income the carcass and the proportion of co-edible, adding a higher commercial value.