Speckle Park International magazine - 2022 edition
Technical news
How to interpret that feedback sheet from the abattoir By Alison Bates
The degree of muscling or positively affects the dressing percentage and yield of a carcase. It can take an expert eye to distinguish between muscle and fat in live cattle.
You have sent some animals to the abattoir and in return they have sent you some money and a Producer Feedback report. It’s obvious what some of the information means. Some of it is more difficult to understand. How do you interpret what it all means? The first place you can look is the Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) website. There is information here embedded within the More Beef from Pastures program, but if you just want to understand the numbers in your Feedback report you will have to wade through a lot of valuable context to get there. A Google search for Form 3.7.1 Producer Feedback Reports will get you to a useful glossary quickly. Although the definitions are standard, the details in the Producer Feedback report will vary between Abattoirs.
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A standard report for an animal you’ve sent for slaughter will have less detail than the sort of report that would be produced for a carcase competition. As there is variation in reporting between different abattoirs. Let’s start with a very basic report. The first carcase, a bull, had a Hot Weight of 375.9 kilograms. The Hot Weight is also known as Hot Standard Carcase Weight (HSCW). This is the weight of the carcase after the head, organs and hide etc. have been removed but before the carcase has been chilled. Where a single value is given the HSCW is calculated from the side assessed by an MSA (Meat Standards Australia) Grader. The two sides may not weigh the same and in some reports a weight is given for each side. The sex of the animal B (Bull) F(Female) S(Steer) is indicated in the next column. Next, we see the muscle shape score which represents the assessment of the muscling of the animal.
