The objective of the experiment was to evaluate carcass and meat quantitative and qualitative characteristics of twelve Charolais steers with 30 months of age, submitted to two food treatments during feedlot finishing phase: Tc- sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarum ssp.) and TM- corn silage (Zea mays), composing 43.65 and 45.14% of diet is dry matter (DM), respectively. The diet offered had 11.76% of crude protein on DM, the concentrate was constituted of grounded sorghum grain, defatted rice bran and soybean bran, with equal composition for the treatments, with urea addition for TC. The animals were kept in feedlot until average slaughter weight was of 420 kg (TC - 110 days and TS - 88 days). Hot carcass weight was 214.23 and 222.23 kg for TC and TS, respectively. Hot carcass dressing percentage was of 50.71 and 52.60%, (P=.0612) and cold carcass dressing percentage was of 50.38 and 52.24% (P=.0478). The chilling loss did not differ between the alimentary treatments (P=.7901); equal behavior was for conformation (P=.3334), thickness of subcutaneous fat (P=.9262), area of the Longissimus dorsi muscle in kg and % (P=.5834; P=.2094, respectively). TC steers showed carcasses with higher sawcut percentage (50.04 vs. 49.36%, P=.0984). Forequarter and sidecut, not differed (P=.9963 and P=.1295) between treatments. Muscle percentage was superior for TS in relation to the TC, of 70.67 and 68.08% (P=0.0142), the same for carcass fat percentage, being 11.92 and 15.58% (P=.0137) for TC and TS, respectively.
bone; Charolais; fat; meat; muscle
