Excerpt from Cuba's Livestock and Meat Industries

There is considerable specialization among ranchers. Breeders keep cows and raise calves, which are sold as yearlings weighing 350 to pounds. Growers buy yearlings, and sell 2-year olds' weighing 600' to 700 pounds. Feeders keep the 2-year-olds for 15 to 2h months, depending on range and market conditions, and sell the finished animals at to pounds.

Practices in handling cattle vary widely, but typically are rather primitive. Range hulls deteriorate rapidly, as controlled breeding is practiced only to a limited degree. Most calves are dropped in the Spring, but some births occur throughout the year. Often the calves are left until they are 6 to 12 months old before being rounded up for branding (or ear-clipping), vaccination, castra tion of male stock, dehorning, and clipping. Castration at a late age curtails the animals' growth considerably, and causes some death losses. Also, castration is often omitted entirely, or, when performed by pressure instruments, is done only partially. Dehorning is limited to clipping the tips.

Under these circumstances, a large percentage of cattle come to market as large-boned lean, muscular, wide-horned animals, and producing lean meat with out marbling and without fat, which Cuban consumers prefer. Some growers, however, have demonstrated that Cuba can produce fat, grass-fed steers whose meat compares favorably with all but the highest grade of grain-finished steers in the United States.

Disease is not a serious factor. The island is free of foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest. Strict quarantine regulations bar the importation of fresh meat from infested countries, which might bring these diseases to Cuba. Cattle gener ally are vaccinated against blackleg and anthrax. Tuberculosis and Bang's disease exist but have not been reported at any time as causing serious losses.

Cattle ticks are common throughout Cuba. Although the cattle develop a relative immunity to tick fever, the vitality and quality of herds are sometimes affected detrimentally. The better ranches dip their cattle regularly, and some have developed pastures fairly free of ticks. The prevalence of ticks is a particularly serious problem for breeding stock imported from tick-free areas of the United States.

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