THE MEASUREMENT OF FAT THICKNESS IN LIVE CATTLE WITH AN ULTRASONIC DEVICE AS A PREDICTOR OF CARCASS COMPOSITION

The fat thicknesses of twenty-eight Japanese Black beef steers were measured with an ultrasonic device at eleven points on the cattle prior to slaughter and side dissection. The relation between live fat thickness and both weight and percentage of fat and lean in the carcass was examined. Fat thickness obtained from nine points of the chest, flank and rump regions was found to relate significantly (P<0.01) to both weight and percentage of fat. However, shoulder fat thickness measurements were not significantly related to the weight or percentage of fat or lean in the carcass. Addition of live fat thickness to animal age or live weight as an independent variable markedly improved the precision of multiple regression equations for predicting weight of fat and lean, and percentage of fat. In predicting the percentage of lean, both animal age and body weight were not employed in the multiple regression equation. The residual standard deviation for predicting percentage of fat and lean were 1.93 and 1.87, respectively. The ultrasonic measurement of fat thickness if supposed to be useful to the prediction of carcass composition of beef cattle.