The human population increases at such high rate compared to the cattle population that with time the country may have to import beef. Slaughter of pregnant cows threatens the beef industry. This study attempted to quantify the effect of the practice. The study was conducted during November 2008 and March to April 2009 at three Kampala main abattoirs and the data collected included origin, sex, age, body condition scores, pregnancy status for females and stage of pregnancy for the pregnant ones. The data was analysed using the frequency procedure of SAS 2003 and results show that irrespective of geographical origin, 71% of slaughtered cattle were female 31% of which were pregnant. This translates into 360,000 animals equivalent to over 53,000 metric tones of beef lost. It was apparent that Uganda’s beef industry was based on females.
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