46 TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 



How the carcass is produced. Before discussing the quali- 

 fications of a good carcass, it will be profitable to consider briefly 

 how an animal grows and builds up the parts of its body which 

 eventually make up the carcass. The carcass consists of bone, 

 muscle, connective tissue, and fat. At birth the calf weighs 

 about 70 pounds. Its bones are soft and elastic, and its muscles 

 are tender. It carries a certain degree of fatness, depending 

 on how well it was nourished before it was born in other words, 

 on how well its mother was fed. Up to weaning time it subsists 

 largely upon its mother's milk, which is primarily a bone and 

 muscle builder, producing growth. 



When weaned, the future of the calf depends upon (1) 

 ancestry, (2) feed, and (3) management. If its ancestors were 

 dairy animals, it will never fatten properly nor make a valuable 

 carcass. However, we are dealing with beef production and 

 will assume the calf is from a good line of beef cattle. If given 

 plenty of feed and good care, in other words every opportunity 

 to develop quickly, the calf rapidly increases in size and its 

 flesh expands and thickens. It also lays on fat. It is hard to 

 fatten young animals because they tend to utilize their feed for 

 growth rather than fat. Growth is increase in bone and muscle. 

 However, with heavy feeding, cattle become fat before reaching 

 maturity, and may be sent to market under 20 months of age 

 weighing 800 to 1000 pounds. Such animals are called "baby 

 beeves." 



Another way to handle the calf is to turn it out to pasture 

 and perhaps help it along with a little grain if the pasture is 

 short. In this case the object is to produce growth only, and 

 the animal may then be finished as a two-year-old. Under this 

 plan the animal should be roughed through the winter with 

 care, otherwise it will receive a setback. A third way to manage 

 this calf would be to put it on pasture where it can get grass if 

 there is any, and get thin if there isn't so thin that it loses what 

 we may call its baby flesh. In winter, under this system, the 

 animal starves along as best it can, and the result is that it never 

 makes a good beef, even though liberally fed at the finish. Once 

 the baby fleshing is lost through setbacks received during develop- 

 ment, the steer does not make as desirable a carcass as he would 

 otherwise. 



As an animal increases in age, its bones become hard and 

 flinty. The bones which bear the most strain become most 

 flinty, these being the shank bones. In young cattle the tips 



