Veal production from crossbred and Holstein dairy calves

In this study, it was evaluated the productive performance of nine Zebu x Holstein crossbred calves in comparison with nine Holsteins calves for veal production. All animals were maintained in the similar environmental conditions, management and feeding, with individual measurement of dry matter intake. The evaluation measurements of the development of animal, as feed conversion ratio make possible to compare between the treatments, using a completely randomized design. The Zebu x Holstein calves showed higher values of hearth girth growth (23.3 cm) and average weight gain (1.45 kg), and also better feed conversion ratio (2.77 kg DM/kg BW), as compared to Holstein calves with 18.5 cm of hearth girth growth, 1.16 kg of average weight gain and feed conversion of 3.48 kg DM/kg BW, respectively. There was no difference for dry matter intake among the evaluated animals. As for production cost of the veal meat production, crossbred animals showed a lower cost per kilogram of produced meat. The results indicate the best potential of veal production from Zebu x Holstein calves, as a complementary activity of milk production.