Characteristics of cattle slaughtered within the X-th Region (Chile) according to the terms stated by the official chilean standards for classification and carcass grading

The present study describes the characteristics of 114.666 cattle slaughter ed during 1994 in the 22 slaughterhouses functioning within the X-th Region and the corresponding carcasses produced according to the terms of the off icial chilean standards for cattle classification and carcass grading. The following distribution of classes was found, based on age by dental chr onometry (only milk teeth present = DL, levelled central milk teeth = DL*, number of permanent incisors present = 2-8D, presence of levelled permanent second medials = 8D*) and sex: 40.3% of youngs steers (DL* or 2D); 16.1% o f heifers (DL* or 2D), 1.5% of young bulls (DL*) 10.6% of steers (4-6D), 7. 6% of young cows (4-6D), 9.0% of adult cows (8D), 6.1% of old cows (8D*), 0 .0% of bulls castrated as adults (2-8D*), 2.4% of bulls (2-8D*), 4.2% of ox en (8D or 8D*) and 2.2% of calves (DL). The distribution of the carcasses w ithin the official grading categories (V-A-C-U-N-O) was as follows: V = 55. 9%, A = 12.7%, C = 4.6%, U = 15.2%, N = 10.4% and O = 1.2%. The proportion of carcasses falling into grades 0 (none), I(light), 2 (abun dant) and 3 (excess ) of subcutaneous fat cover was 10.1%, 78.3%, 10.2% and 1.4%, respectively. Some 7.7% of carcasses presented a degree of bruising; of the latter, 4.8% were classified as degree 1 (affecting only subcutaneo us tissues), 2.1% as degree 2 (affecting subcutaneous and muscular tissue) and 0.8% as degree 3 (affecting also bone). It was concluded that within the X-th Region, predominantly young cattle ar e slaughtered, especially young steers and heifers, producing carcasses wit h a light fat cover and graded as V. Only a small proportion of carcasses p resented bruising serious enough (degree 2 or 3) to degrade the carcasses.