Carcass Weight to Market Weight Beef
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Calculating Carcass Yield: Use Dressing Percentages
fifteen April 2014
Instead of thinking but near yield of finished animals, the team at Certified Angus Beefiness (CAB) are advising to analyse dressing pct.
Cattle feeders live by numbers, says CAB. Gain, feed efficiency, rations and of class prices—each one matters to the ultimate bottom line, but there'southward one figure that may be less understood amongst cow-dogie producers.
"If you spend much time talking with a feedlot director nigh components of profitable cattle, information technology won't be long until he or she starts talking near dressing percent," says Mark McCully, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) vice president.
It's frequently referred to simply as "yield" though it'south non at all the same equally Yield Grade.
"Dressing pct is merely the percent of a live, finished steer or heifer that ends up in the carcass form," he says.
The math is pretty straightforward. McCully shares this example: if a i,300-pound (lb.) live steer produces an 819-lb. hot carcass, that number divided by the live weight equals .63 or 63 per cent. A bigger number, or higher yield in this case, is more than favorable.
With a typical range in dressing percentage falling betwixt 57 per cent and 67 per cent, what impact does a shift one way or the other have on profit?
"When you put a pencil to it and effigy in today'southward relatively high prices, those points really add upwardly," McCully says.
Selling that 1,300-lb. steer at a carcass-weight price of $225 per hundredweight (cwt.) brings up a $117 difference when moving from a dressing percent of 61 per cent to 65 per cent (see Table ane).
Producers used to call up of dressing percent as a packer calculation, only as more cattlemen move to selling on a grid, it figures into the pricing formula.
"If you have cattle that dress college, so you lot have a higher per centum of their total alive weight that y'all're getting paid for and you lot'll get more value," says Amy Radunz, University of Wisconsin animal scientist.
Carcass weight is the footing for payment, so quality premiums and discounts are added, and many grids also incentivize above-boilerplate dressing percentage.
"Beating that plant average puts more dollars in the producer's pocket," McCully says.
Dressing percentage does impact cash sellers, too.
"If you are going to market cattle on a alive basis, dressing percentage is a factor because the packer-buyer is going to take that into account equally he gives y'all a live price," Radunz says. "They don't want to pay for weight that has less value to it."
"Buyers are sitting at that place in the auction barn essentially putting those cattle on a grid," she says.
As they drive the yard or evaluate cattle in the band, packers are looking at all the factors that affect dressing percent: horns, amount of hide (Brahman influence), mud, gut make full, fat cover and muscling (see Table two).
"As cattle become fatter, dressing pct goes upwards," McCully says. "Of grade overly fat is non the goal, only genetics and days on feed come up into play."
Especially when the carcass toll is loftier enough and feed prices are low enough, feeders may go on cattle on feed longer to amend dressing percentage.
"I'm putting on more than carcass weight and at the end of the twenty-four hour period, pounds are a large portion of the value of that animal," Radunz says. "Plus there are premiums for marbling and it insures that regardless of genetics they're going to accept the potential for more to hitting the upper two-thirds of Selection and perchance even Prime."
Information technology's also important that marbling comes in tandem with muscling ability.
"A Holstein animal, for instance, has a higher percent of head, feet and legs, especially considering they are so lightly muscled," she says, noting that ranchers can potentially improve dressing pct by paying attention to the ribeye area (REA) expected progeny difference (EPD), an indicator of muscling.
"You want to make sure you're selecting for cattle that have the combination of Quality and Yield Grade, those cattle that volition marble merely besides accept muscling," Radunz says.
McCully says using all available selection tools should aid cattlemen please both feeders and consumers: "When you know what your customers need, you lot tin can design a product that will keep them coming back for more."
Source: https://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/3892/calculating-carcass-yield-use-dressing-percentages/