Little is known about the carcass characteristics of unimproved commercial (or ‘Criollo’) cattle although these still account for a large proportion of slaughter animals in Latin America.

Data were collected from 52 commercial cattle in a commercial slaughterhouse in Monterrey, N.L. Mexico. They included carcass weight, length, total edible meat (carcass fat was negligible), total bone and eleven typical Mexican cuts whose anatomical relations are described. The age of the animals was judged according to dentition and data were stratified using this criterion for analysis. Variations in total edible meat, which averaged 77·4%, were almost entirely accounted for by differences in body weight. Data are presented to indicate amounts of various cuts in the carcasses and some significant differences were demonstrated in values for these cuts among age groups; possible explanations for this were discussed. Prediction equations were calculated to relate total edible meat with the selected cuts and carcass weight and it was found that carcass weight gave the best prediction of total edible meat and could also be used to predict expected weights of individual joints with reasonable accuracy.