Body composition of live cattle and its prediction from fasted liveweight, tritiated water space and age

Abstract

The body composition of 23 Hereford steers was related to their liveweight after a 24 h fast (W), total body water (TBW), tritiated water space (T) and age in months (A) by using allometric or linear regression models. Fifteen steers, of similar initial age, were taken at intervals from a grazing experiment having a wide range of stocking rates. These steers were 15-22 months of age and 189-461 kg W at slaughter. Six younger and two older steers were also used to expand the range to 3-33 months and 90-517 kg. The steers were taken from pasture 3 h after sunrise and deprived of feed and water thereafter. After 4 h, tritiated water was given intramuscularly and 20 h later blood was collected and the animals were weighed and slaughtered. Models having the least residual standard deviation (r.s.d.) and the predictors which contributed significantly in the stepwise regression analysis (P i 0.05) are given for each range of W. T greatly improved the estimation of fat and slightly improved the prediction of protein. A only slightly improved the prediction of TBW and fat. Equations applicable to the narrow range of W were: total body water (kg) =