Abstract
This study was performed to evaluate the beef production ability of single-calf heifers (SH), by comparing to those of adult none-calf heifers (AH) and young heifers (YH) in Japanese Black cattle. SH and AH were fattened from 32 and 30 age of month for 5 months, respectively, and YH was fattened from 10 to 25 age of month. Although SH and All had a larger pre-slaughter body weight than YH (P<0.05), there were no differences in carcass weight and dressing percentage among the groups. No significant differences were also observed in the other carcass yield traits (rib eye area, rib thickness, backfat thickness and cutability) and the quality traits (marbling, beef color, fat color and firmness) among the groups. From these results, it is suggested that SH would be able to produce the almost same size of carcasses and meat quality as YH in Japanese Black cattle.
