Performance of steers of dairy origin in beef cattle in different production systems: Review

Abstract

The dairy cattle in Brazil has grown tremendously in recent years, both in number of animals and in productivity. However, a real difficulty is to give suitable male calves born on these properties, since there is a greater interest in creating and recreating female calves to be future mothers of the herd destination. In recent years these calves have been studied in relation to its potential to be utilized in beef cattle , which would be a possible way to generate income from the exploitation of these animals , and would not rule them slaughtering or donating to other property as is currently done by dairy farms . Several studies have found that these dairy animals but can be availed in beef cattle production systems in both grazing as well as in confinement , however, of course , without waiting to have the same performance than specialized animals for meat production feature . The work carried out show that the feasibility of using these animals of dairy origin for meat production depends on the conditions to achieve early slaughter and a low cost production, these being intrinsic to each system of production factors.