The experiment was carried out with 20 intact Holstein male calves, 75 days old, with mean live weight of 76 kg, submitted to the same nursing system before starting the experiment. The objective was to evaluate the relative size of internal organs and viscera of these animals fed diets containing 45, 60, 75 and 90% of concentrate. Diets were composed of coastcross hay, ground corn grain, soybean meal and mineral mixture. The experimental design was a randomized blocks, with four treatments and five replicates. The experimental period was different for each treatment, where the animals were slaughtered as they reached a mean weight of 200 kg. Before slaughter, the animals were fasted for 16 hours. The absolute weights for the liver, kidneys, lungs, abomasum, mesentery and fat present in the carcass linearly increased as the levels of concentrate in the diets increased. There were no significant differences for the weight of the other organs and viscera, nor for the non constituint parts of the carcasses of the animals, as leather, feet, head and tail, in relation to the levels of the concentrate.
Holstein calves; internal organs; level of concentrate; veal calves; viscera
