Gerald Fry

[rkaiser]

How about some discussion on the Gerald Fry weekend. For those of you who could not make it; it was a wonderful event and thanks to the Wobesors for putting up with our antics and hosting the darn thing.

I'm going to start the ball rolling by bringing up a topic that I felt was most important to me. Early weaning, or the stress involved in a young calf's life that leads to underdeveloped fore rib loin or heart girth later in the calf's life.

We personally weaned a calf crop in early March of 2010 after birthing these calves in May and June of 2009. The main reason we did it was the high feed costs last winter and our decision to feed a pile of quite ripe silage rather than purchase hay at 100 plus bucks a bale.

We linear measure our bulls every year and the linear measurements were almost exactly the same 3 score average for this group over wintered on the cows as the past years group. However, our weight adjusted rib eye per hundred pounds increased substantially.

Now I would like to think that our breeding program is improving every year, but the jump in rib eye size has certainly got me wondering how much management has to do with fore loin development.

Can you imagine the number of dollars that the industry could be throwing away if these numbers are true. We personally saw over ten per cent increase in weight adjusted rib eye -- year to year on two pens of 30 Welsh Black bulls. What if it is only five percent on hundreds of thousands of calves weaned at 200 days in Canada every year?

Oh yes, I am planning on using this thread to promote not only the Gerald Fry conference, but a set of Celtic bulls that will be sold on April 9th at the Olds College....

A set of bulls that got the Igenity boys wondering what was going on when we spanked 5 out of 8 sons of one sire with 9 out of ten on the tenderness DNA marker. A top linear measured sire out of a top linear measured grand sire. HMMM. Maybe nature and selection by nature (which is what linear measurement means to me) can create some wonderful, predictable carcasses after all....

Cheers,

Randy

Come on everybody (especially purecountry) sing along

[grassfarmer]

Not quite clear what the cause and effect are in this situation - Did the extra development come as a result of later weaning, less stress or a higher energy ration earlier in life?
It would appear to me the biggest change you made to the cattle was feeding them a higher energy feed (mature silage versus hay) so maybe that is the most likely cause?
If that's the case we need to work on low stress weaning methods followed by early introduction of a higher energy diet.

[smcgrath76]

That would have been a good weekend.
Things got more than tied up here.
I think linear measurement is a pretty
good tool in the toolbox. I suspect like
GF that the loin development might have a
lot to do with diet.
It is neat to see how with different
resources, different approaches work (like
March weaning).

[rkaiser]

I'm not going to disagree on the diet thing, however what is the natural diet of a calf that we tend to want to duplicate. We talk about the importance of colostrum when a calf is born but what about the importance of butter fat, and healthy butterfat from a healthy cow for a certain length of time in a healthy calf's life?

Yes this is also diet, but a natural diet.

Then I will throw this twist in. How about calving in January and weaning in October like another participant in the session does. We can argue that his calving period is not really natural, but are these big wonderful Angus calves of Jimmy Grant's developing into the fine beasts they are by being with their mommas longer?

[per]

Randy, what factors determine linear measurement score? Is is carved in genetics or can it be influenced by diet/environment?

[rkaiser]

8 measurements put into a formula Phil. Gives them a score from 1 to 5. I liken it to a tool to measure "natural selection". Identifies masucline males and feminine females and has a profound effect on carcass quality.

We definitely found that the score can be influenced by diet, and possibly environment, so the animals need to be compared by contemporary group.

The first year we measured, we were on a 35% grain ration at Cattle land. We had 8 out of the 11 bulls we measured score over 4. This was almost unheard of. Since we took the added grain out of our silage, hay and a bit of DDGS ration, we only get a couple of bulls over 4 out of the 45 or so that we have measured in the five years since.

[kato]

I once read a story about a study done in the U.S. with a group of Angus cows that went on for many years. They took this herd of cows, and selected strictly for milking ability. For many years. What they found was that over time, the main change in the cows was that they were longer bodied.

Does this relate to any of the measurements in the Fry system?

[PureCountry]

Kato, I see that relating slightly.
Basically Gearld - not Gerald, Mr.
Kaiser - explained how to identify
correlations between certain body types
and corresponding outcomes, like high
milk production or large loins, or low
marbling, etc.

I was already fairly familiar with the
linear measuring, so what was more
fascinating to me was Gearld's other
little secrets. Identifying other things
on the bovine body, in their hair
patterns and such, which identify high
or low butterfat females, high or low
marbling males, and so on. Every single
little nugget like that that he shared
with us, I could relate back to animals
I have owned.
Others in attendance also had nuggets to
share, like Jimmy Grant of Early Sunset
Angus, or the Wobeser's or even our mad
bull salesman, Mr. Kaiser. Although as
he and I learnt Friday night at Karaoke,
everything that glitters is not gold.
LOL

[rkaiser]

I would tend to disagree Mr. Goodrich, everything that glitters "IS" gold. Or the equivalent of gold anyway. It's all in our attitude. If you look at that shooter glass after you have emptied it and the glitter in the bottom is not gold, we tend to think of it as something other than good and want to rid ourselves of it. If we think it is gold, or something good, we just enjoy the experience.

Gee whiz, I just realised that we have the new president of the Western Stock Growers in our midst. Congratulations and cheers Mr. President. I'll allow you to identify yerself.

[per]

Thanks Randy, now I am going to have to post only things I believe and not the missing part of the argument.
It is fun and my skin is thickening up pretty fast. Just for the record though, I post as a person here and it is not necessarily the position of the WSGA.

[PureCountry]

Kaiser wrote: "I would tend to disagree
Mr. Goodrich, everything that glitters
"IS" gold. Or the equivalent of gold
anyway. It's all in our attitude. If you
look at that shooter glass after you
have emptied it and the glitter in the
bottom is not gold, we tend to think of
it as something other than good and want
to rid ourselves of it. If we think it
is gold, or something good, we just
enjoy the experience."

Whatever you say, 'cause whatever you
just said in all that makes as much
sense as an elevator in an
outhouse.....I think. lol

[grassfarmer]

Yes, congratulations Per - I have a lot of respect for the WSGA and I'm sure you'll make an able leader.

So returning to the topic has Fry or anyone else any theories regarding the length of head on female cattle and whether that is always linked to the longer back/higher maintenance type?

[per]

Is there a correlation from Fry's measurements to eye appeal? In other words can you get the right relationships between girth and top line etc by looking at them?

A cow needs to look like a female. I dislike long necks and the crown of the head has to be even or above the back line. I also don't like long narrow heads and go for 1/3 shoulders, barrel and hind end. Not a thing scientific about this but these seem to be the type that work on grass on this outfit. So that goes to the original question, does measuring have any correlation to those visual traits?

[perfecho]

As per Per.....is Fry's method a "yardstick measurement" for what some "oldtimers" would consider balance and eye appeal?

[rkaiser]

I think that you can train your eye to predict a higher linear measurement score, but what is eye appeal? We have seen what eye appeal has done in the show ring.

If the old rancher you speak of, is identifying a bull that would more than likely be the bull who would win out in a battle to breed females in the wild, he may pick a higher scoring linear measured bull.

We were talking about the cow herd developed naturally on the Aleutian Islands, and from what we all saw, the masculine, heavy fronted bulls with balance and moderate frame and size created a herd of fairly compact and hardy beasts. I would suggest that a frame 7, pencil gutted, barley eatin Agribition Champion would get his ass kicked on the Aleutian Islands.