Table 5.

Carcass characteristics from heifers receiving vitamin and mineral bolus

	Treatmenta
Item	CON	MIN	SEM	P-value
HCW, kg	342	340	9	0.86
Dressing percentage	0.61	0.61	0.004	0.94
Marbling scoreb	584	523	33	0.19
Back fat, cm	1.48	1.31	0.13	0.38
Longissimus area, cm2	87.2	86.1	2.8	0.79
Calculated yield grade	2.85	2.83	0.20	0.95

^aTreatment: CON = heifers did not receive vitamin and mineral bolus; MIN = heifers received vitamin and mineral bolus containing a minimum of 3,740 mg Ca, 16,456 mg Mg, 112 mg Na, 11,220 mg Cu, 2,995 mg I, 2,805 mg Mn, 505 mg Se, 48,620 mg Zn, 468 mg Co, 824,296 IU vitamin A, 173,102 IU vitamin D3, and 4,121 IU vitamin E based on company analysis; Reloader 250 Mineral Bolus, Cargill Inc., Minneapolis, MN.

^bMarbling score: small = 400–499, modest = 500–599 and moderate = 600–699 (Emerson et al., 2013).