CASE STUDY: Assessment of Relationships Between Carcass Traits and Body Measures at Conclusion of Pasture Backgrounding1

Direct measures of body size and condition may be useful in sorting feeder cattle into uniform groups prior to entering the feedlot. Two groups of yearling steers were allocated to three pastures during either the cool or warm seasons and placed on low, intermediate, or high planes of nutrition with a corn-soybean meal supplement. Hip height (HIPH), BW, ultrasound fat thickness (12th to 13th rib; UFT), kilograms of BW per centimeter of HIPH (BW/HIPH), body condition score (BCS), and UFT/100 kg of BW (UFT/BW) were taken at the end of stocker grazing and compared with endpoint carcass traits. Correlations