Ultimate Cow?

[jmillang]

Yes hair coat thickness and hide thickness do have an impact on energy requirements. I went hunting to find the National research council's research on hair coat and found this [URL="http://books.nap.edu/books/0309069343/html/9.html#page_bottom"]web page[/URL] this is actually the NRC's nutrient requirements for beef cattle book, that they have published online. At the bottom of the page it talks about hair coat and the formula (based on research) that hair coat and hide thickness is plugged into. The web page has a great search tool to find key words in the entire book. Just type in your key word and click on the button search this book. You can find all the references to hair coat you want.

Like cowman mentioned hair coat is something that history has taught us partially from experience, but often bias and ways to discriminate rather than always being based on logic and science. In this case the old ranchers were onto something.

[countryguy]

This is not the hard evidence I wanted to find but it is a little story I thought I'd share.Last spring when I was cow shopping I visited a ranch with a long haired herd of around 280 cows.He had said that the previous year he had a guy working for him helping with chores and stuff.This hired hand was also helping out another rancher who had approximately the same number of short haired cows.He told the long haired breeder that the short haired cows were eating about double the feed of the long haired ones.True or not I cannot say.This was not a sales pitch either as it was discussed over a cup of coffee AFTER my deal was made.