CHAPTER II 

 THE BEEF CARCASS 



Buyers of fat cattle at the large market centers make their bids 

 largely according to their estimates of the kind of carcasses the animals 

 will yield. These estimates are made with considerable accuracy be- 

 cause the buyers have made a study of carcasses and of the cuts which 

 they yield. A similar knowledge of meats is essential to the beef pro- 

 ducer in order that he may learn to judge and value beef cattle correctly. 



Slaughtering and dressing.44jpon reaching the packing house, 

 cattle rapidly pass through the following operations of killing and 



Fig. 10. — Knocking cattle. 



dressing: 1 1. Driven into knocking pens, two animals to each pen, 

 and stunned or killed by heavy blow of sledge hammer on forehead. 

 2. Hoisted by hind legs, bled, and head skinned and removed. 3. 

 Lowered to floor, shanks skinned and removed at knees and hocks, 

 and hide opened along middle of belly and removed from belly and 

 sides. 4. Partially raised by hocks, middles opened, viscera removed, 

 hide removed from rump and rounds, and tail skinned and removed. 

 5. Carcass raised from floor, hide removed entirely, and carcass split 

 through center of backbone from tail to neck. 6. Sides of beef sus- 



iWentworth, Munnecke, and Brown: Progressive Beef Cattle Raising, Armour 

 and Company, Chicago, 1920, pp. 74, 75. 



47 



