I don't know about that. The normal weaned calves had more REA and a marbling advantage with the same backfat. Of course there is only 56 calves in that study and they werent evenly split between heifers and steers, early weaned and normal weaned, or Angus and Charolais. I would have preferred a larger more representative study before I drew many conclusions.
I don't know about that. The normal weaned calves had more REA and a marbling advantage with the same backfat. Of course there is only 56 calves in that study and they werent evenly split between heifers and steers, early weaned and normal weaned, or Angus and Charolais. I would have preferred a larger more representative study before I drew many conclusions.
Brandon, If these calves were randomly chosen from a larger group you would not need more cattle represented in the study to get an accurate accounting of the traits.
There were only 24 early weaned calves and only 32 normally weaned calves and in the smallest group (Angus heifers) there was only 8 head. Also I found the REAs of the steers to be much smaller than the heifers (of both breeds). Given the steers carcass weight advantages I find those results ODD versus what we would normally expect and are probably just a result of having small sample sizes. Do a study with 100 head and repeat the results in at least a second year and I would take it seriously. In just the small sample normal weaned calves appear to have an advantage in both quality grade and muscling. IS that a result of the tiny sample sizes or is it a trend that would repeat? I would not actually make management changes based on this limited a study.
