Intensive Beef Production

A. Vas Portugal

Summary

Intensive animal production is aimed at the establishment of maximal biological production using highly concentrated feeding levels to achieve high levels of production that can more easily minimize the costs of the animal maintenance and other fixed costs. The biological responses per animal unit and mass production (animal concentration per space unit) are the basis of the production aimed at, without judging the efficiency of transformation, which becomes lower with increasing levels of unitary production. Economic aspects of production are important, but one tends to forget that quite often obtaining competitive costs of production is done disregarding the capacity of consumption by the market and that the utilization of available level of resources are considered as secondary. There is a need to consider the difference between biological productivity and adequate production obtained from available local resources. “Competitiveness” of production in economic terms (lower costs of production) does not mean higher levels of biological productivity.

The unit of production concept. The building up of the specified requirements of a “mother-line” as regards growth and finishing of steers, will help in defining the meat production more adequately. The cost of the mother maintenance lowers the cost of meat production. The utilization of the indigenous animal capacity, keeping low costs of maintenance and using industrial crossing, might be the best solution to optimize efficiency, aiming at higher weight at weaning, related to 100 kg of live weight of mothers.

Body development principles (growth and fattening). The combination of growth potential and maturation index might give a clue to the efficiency of the beef production system regarding its intensity. Selection for lean meat will require an animal breed where fat deposition occurs at a later age. Each animal has specific characteristics (genetic), an ideal slaughtering weight (also depending on market requirements) and shows an individual daily increase, due to the limited rate of protein deposition as regards the proportion of the ingested food being deposited as fat.

Manipulation of feedstuffs and reticulo-rumen phenomena. These aim at making more efficient and qualitatively more adequate the genetic conditions of the animal. The level of glucose metabolic used and its availability (gluconeogene formation potential) by the developing steer will limit the level of growth and its quality. Several aspects are considered trying to optimize the animal and adequate feeding.

Available feeds and its utilization. Aiming to the better utilization of local natural feeding resources, one should try to exploit the animal with the characteristics more suitable to improve the efficiency of transformation decreasing the costs of maintenance. This may be achieved not only by an increase of the daily gain (considering that efficiency is aggravated by unit of weight made related with its increase) but also by obtaining a lower cost of production (manipulation of local feedstuffs, of the energetic costs of growth). Interactions and associated effects between feed components, in food mixtures should be considered and are of great importance in the interpretation of efficiency, at energetic and metabolic levels.

Technology trensfer. Adoption of advanced technology implies the maximization of available resources. It is not claimed that the best technology of intensification of meat production is the traditional one, in the most advanced countries, where very often the animal doesn’t go to pasture.

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Intensive Beef Production

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Ruminant production in the dry subtropics : constraints and potentials : proceedings of the international symposium on the constraints and possibilities of ruminant production in the dry subtropics

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Intensive Beef Production

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Ruminant production in the dry subtropics : constraints and potentials : proceedings of the international symposium on the constraints and possibilities of ruminant production in the dry subtropics

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