Evaluation of cattle carcass according to slaughterhouse data in the winter time in kirikkale province

This study was conducted to determine the present situation of cattle slaughtered in a private slaughterhouse in Kırıkkale province and some slaughter and carcass characteristics of Simmental male cattle slaughtered at 16-18 months of age. When the data of the private slaughterhouse routine records were considered, the number of cattle that were salughtered in the months of December (the year of 2019), January and February were detected as 397, 261 and 171, respectively. While the quite large part of cattle slaughtered were consisted of Simmental cattle, the percentages for the months were determined as 96.22%, 95.78% and 95.91%, respectively. This was followed by Holstein breed one of the cultured-cattle breed (2.27%, 2.30% and 2.34%). While it was seen that mostly male cattle were slaughtered (98.83%-99.23%); the cattle aged at 15-18 months of age had more than of 50% of the cattle slaughtering (54.79%-54.97%) in the present study. The pre-salughter age and pre-slaughter weights of Simmental male cattles which have a great majority of slaughtering were detected as average 16.91 months of age and average 628.92 kg. Hot and cold dressing percentages were determined as 58.81% and 57.66%, respectively in the study. While the area of M. Longissimus dorsi (MLD) was detected as 98.19 cm2; the back fat thickness value was 0.64 cm. According to findings related to carcass measurements, it was seen that carcass length, chest depth, buttock length and buttock width values were 205.77 cm, 73.55 cm, 63.42 cm and 65.48, respectively. This study was one of the first study related the potential of Kırıkkale province in terms of cattle slaughtering and carcass structure. Thereby, it can be predicted that the results of the present study will provide a data archive for further studies.