Northern Territory Cattle region
The Northern Territory is split into two cattle regions, the tropic and the arid regions. As seen on the Top Left map the tropic area is towards the top being the green and yellow, and the arid are is towards the bottom being the orange and red area. The northern region has a tropical climate, which means high humidity a wet season (October to April) and a dry season (May to September). (Wikipedia 2013)
The Dry season generally means that every day is warm and sunny, and has very little rainfall. The coldest months are June and July with temperatures dipping as low as 14 degrees, but frost has never been recorded. The wet season is associated with monsoon rains and tropical cyclones. Most the rain occurs between…show more content… Angus cattle are commonly used in cross breeding to increase carcass quality and milking ability. The breed is also highly sought after for their ability to marble, their white fat and bright-red lean meat. Because they are a poll breed (without horns) they are also used as a ‘genetic dehorner’, as well as being used to genetically dehorn cattle they are also extremely well known for ease of calving, which is also a highly sought after gene. As seen above Angus cattle are black. Angus cattle also mature earlier than other British breeds. Because of their native environment, the cattle are very resilient and can survive the Scottish winters, which have snowfall and storms, this gives them both heat and drought resistance. As well as being resilient to the environment they also have a decent tick resistance. (Cattle Breeds NSW…show more content… Things such as Frame, structure, muscularity, fatness and condition score can all be assessed by visual assessments. Although visual assessment is quick, doing it manually generally has better results. Some traits such as fertility or marbling cannot be assessed visually.
Muscle and Fat Score
A visual assessment on fat and muscle requires a lot of practice and skill and is far less accurate then manually doing it, but it saves time and gives a reasonable estimate of fatness. As cattle fatten:
• Ribs become less visible
• Tailhead softens, with mounds of fat increasing beside the tail
• Muscle seams of hindquarters become covered with fat and are less evident when cattle walk
• Brisket, flank, cod and twist all fill out, giving cattle a square appearance compared with the roundness of leaner, heavily muscled cattle.
From this cattle producers can easily see the leaner animals and the fatter animals. Leaner cattle generally have a more predominate tail head among with other minor things, but can be quickly spotted with a trained