Effects of Attributes and Consciousness of Fattening Farms Households on Carcass Prices and Traits

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate effects of attributes and consciousness of farm households on prices and traits of carcass sold from the farms. Questionnaire surveys were conducted to farms under the Agura Co-operative Farm and 91 questionnaires were available for the present analysis. Best linear unbiased estimations (BLUEs) of each farm for carcass prices and traits were estimated using 20,346 carcass records collected from January 2004 to March 2005 at the Agura co-operation Farm. The BLUEs were analyzed by least squares procedures using a model containing attributes and consciousness of farm households obtained from questionnaires as sources of variation. The result showed that farm households who make great account of both income and joy of life in keeping animals can produce carcasses with higher quality. In addition, it was shown that the effect of farm size on carcass unit price was quadratic ; as farm size increased, carcass unit price decreased and increased beyond the size of more than 932 heads.