Association between carcass weight and real-time morphometric measurements of fore shank dimensions of slaughtered male cattle

In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the association of some morphometric carcass measurements including fore shank dimensions to be used for prediction carcass weight of slaughtered cattle in abattoirs. Associations between carcass weights (CW) and some carcass measurements such as carcass width (CWH), carcass length (CL) and carcass depth (CD) together with Shank Circumference (SC), Shank Length (SL) and Shank Diameter (SD) were examined for identification of possible variables to predict carcass weight, using the data with 155 observations for each trait. The findings demonstrated a strong correlation between carcass weight and the measurements of some carcass regions including shank measurements. There were positive relationships between carcass weight and Carcass Depth with correlation coefficients of (0.73) and Shank Circumference (SC) (0.64), Carcass Length (CL) (0.60), Shank Length (SL) (0.56), Carcass Width (CWH) (0.45) and Shank Diameter (0.39) respectively. It was also observed that there were higher positive and significant correlation coefficients among some numerous morphometric variables such as between CD and CWH (0.71); CD and SL (0.65) and CL and SL (0.68) respectively. The measurements of CD, CL and SC were shown to have statistically significant correlation coefficient with carcass weight (CW) and similarly there were high correlation coefficients between CD and SL; CL and SL. Therefore, It is possible to draw the conclusion that Shank Length can be included to predict carcass weight together with the above-mentioned variables and further studies are required to include data with other breeds comparison.