Abstract

UNGER, Niels  and  HIEBERT, Mirko. Productive performance, carcass and meat quality, and profitability of growing and finishing intact and castrated male cattle in feedlot. Investig. Agrar. [online]. 2025, vol.27, n.1, e2701809.  Epub June 20, 2025. ISSN 2305-0683.  https://doi.org/10.18004/investig.agrar.2025.2701809.

With the objective of comparing the productive performance, carcass quality, meat quality, and profitability of growing and finishing intact male (IM) and castrated male (CM) cattle in feedlot, a study was conducted where, from a total of 242 recently weaned calves from the same production system, two groups were randomly formed: 128 castrated animals (T1) and 114 intact animals (T2). Both groups were housed in different pens for growing and finishing, treated under the same environmental conditions, health management, and nutrition. The productive variables evaluated were: weaning weight, weight at 138 days, and weight at the end of confinement, weight gain (WG), and average daily gain (ADG). Carcass and meat quality variables included: hot carcass weight (HCW), classification according to dentition and sex, grading according to fat coverage, conformation and bruising, compactness index (CI), ribeye area (REA), backfat thickness (BFT), and marbling score (MS). Finally, an economic analysis of the treatments was performed. The results show that IM cattle presented higher ADG (difference of 130 g/d), higher HCW (4.47 kg), and higher CI (0.07 points). Economically, the IM generated a net income of 31.4 USD higher. However, CM was superior in BFT (22.11%) and commercial quality, being mostly graded (88.89%) with the Premium grade, a category in which IM were not included.

Keywords : productivity; weight gain; yield; grading; net income.

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