The objective ofthe experiment was to study the carcass physical composition and meat qualitativecharacteristics of different categories of Charolais cattle, feedlot finished.Nine steers (ST), ten heifers (HE), with average age of 20 months, and ten cullcows (CO) with average age of 87 months, taken from the same herd, were used.Diet contained 13% of crude protein for ST and HE and 10% for CO, with roughage:concentraterelation of 50:50, on a dry matter basis. The animals of the three categorieswere slaughtered with similar degree of finishing, with average subcutaneousfat thickness of 3.8 mm. HE showed carcasses with greater pistolcut percentage(52.8%) than ST (51.0%) and CO (51.4%). The carcass physical composition wassimilar among the categories evaluated, with 66.5; 67.0 and 67.3% of muscle,19.1; 18.5 and 18.7% of fat, and 14.9; 15.0; and 14.6% of bone, respectively,for ST, HE and CO. The marbling score was lower for HE (4.6 points) than ST(7.1 points) and CO (6.5 points). However, when this characteristic was adjustedfor 100 kg of cold carcass, the means were similar among the categories. COshowed higher cooking losses (27.8%) than ST (21.4%) and HE (23.5%). Meat color,texture, tenderness, shear force, palatability and juiciness were similar amongthe categories. Charolais cows have the potential for the production of carcassand meat with quality similar to steers and heifers.
