Cattle business is no doubt profitable but you can actually calculate the profit if you track the numbers, yes! do the math.
Cattle business can be broadly divided into:1) sale of live animals. 2) buy the animal, fatten and sell. 3) buy, slaughter and sell.
How do you calculate the meat to expect from the carcass ? many people believe that the live weight of the animal is what to expect when animal is slaughtered. A lot of people are often surprised at quantity of meat after processing because dressing percentage is different from live weight.
The concept of dressing percentage is key to profit calculation in cattle business, this is the math critical to business evaluation.
What is dressing percentage and how do you do the math? The dressing percentage is the portion of the live weight that results in hot carcass weight.
What is the hot carcass weight? this is the weight of the unchilled carcass after the head,internal organs and hides have been removed. The hot carcass weight for cattle is approximately about 60-64% of the live animal weight. The hot carcass weight can vary from one animal to another depending on some factors.
The dressing percentage = hot carcass weight / live weight X 100.
If an animal weighs 300 kg, working with 62.5% as hot carcass weight means the dressing percentage will be: 187.5 /300 X 100= 62.5.
The dressing percentage used in the meat industry does not equate to amount of beef that will be available for sale because the carcass will be divided into various meat cuts.
The whole animal is cut into halves and separated into front and hind quarters. These quarters are separated into primal cuts ,this is referred to as breaking down the carcass. The amount of beef available can be affected by amount of fat in carcass which will be trimmed off or the size /weight of bone because bone can weigh more.
The more bone is left in the beef cut the higher the yield percentage but when retail cuts are boneless then the percentage yield will be lower.
This calculation is a template to determine profit whether you are supplying beef using different cuts or you are selling retail.
