The study was carriedout at the Animal Production Department of the Universidade Federal of SantaMaria-RS, to evaluate the effect of age on carcass characteristics and compositionof carcass regions (forequarter, rib, hindquarter and section 9a-11aribs) at newly born calves. Eighteen animals distributed in three slaughterage (six at birth, six at 50 days and six at 110 days of age), were used. Thequantitative characteristics of slaughter live weight (40.8; 59.7 and 87.0 kg),hot (22.7; 30.9 and 41.9 kg) and cold carcass weight (21.8; 30.1 and 40.7 kg),carcass length (63.8; 75.0 and 82.8 cm), round thickness (9.3; 10.0 and 12.2cm), hand perimeter (18.2; 22.1 and 23.3 cm) and Longissimus dorsi musclearea (16.8; 20.2 and 22.4 cm2) were increased linearly, accordingto the age increase. Hot (55.4; 51.6 and 48.1%) and cold (53.2; 50.3 and 46.7%)carcass dressing percentage decreased linearly with age increase. As the animalsgrew the proportions of forequarter (37.9; 35.4 and 35.0%) and bone tissue incarcass (29.8; 28.6 and 25.5%) were reduced and those of hidquarter (47.3; 50.6and 51.0%) and fat carcass tissue (4.9; 5.4 and 7.3%) were increased.
