the
bulls were housed, they were 20 kg lighter (P o 0.05) than the steers. By the time the steers were housed, the bulls were 62 kg heavier (P o 0.001), and they were 46 kg heavier (P o 0.001) at the time of last weighing before slaughtering commenced. While the target slaughter weight was the same for bulls and steers, the bulls were actually 27 kg heavier (P o 0.05) at slaughter.
From arrival to first turn-out (P o 0.05), during the first winter (P o 0.05), from steer housing to commencement of slaughter (P o 0.01), and from bull housing to slaughter (P o 0.01), live weight gains differed amongst the breed types (Table 2). At no time during these periods was there a significant difference between HF and NR but the JE values were lower (P o 0.05) than both the HF and NR values at all times except during the first winter when they were lower than HF only. Average daily gain from arrival to slaughter and slaughter weight per day of age did not differ significantly for HF and NR but the values for JE were lower (P o 0.05) than for the other two breed types.
There was no difference between bulls and steers in live weight gain during the first winter but during the second grazing season the steers grew faster (P o 0.01) than the bulls up to the time the bulls were housed. After housing, the bulls had over twice the daily live weight gain of steers (P o 0.01) up to the time of steer housing. For the entire period from housing of the bulls to slaughter, and from calf arrival to slaughter, bulls had higher liveweight gains (P o 0.001). There was no effect of slaughter weight on daily gain for any individual period from the time of bull housing to slaughter but daily gain from arrival to slaughter, and slaughter weight per day of age, were higher (P o 0.05) for the Heavy slaughter weight group.
3.2. Feed intake during finishing
Feed intake of the bulls during finishing is shown in
Table 3. At no time was there a significant difference