Pharo Cattle

[gaucho]

Hey Reed if you were implying that I was navel gazing at the New Zealanders I would say quite the contrary although it is refreshing working with guys that come from a country without subsidies. The reason why we went with what we did was we wanted to be involved in a breeding program that had concentrated on grass based low maintenance genetics and that had a solid breeding program behind it and that did not just breed on phenotype but had a true genotype. Cattle that bred true and consistent and were not a cross of combining two extremes like our American Bible thumper rancher does...although again hats off to his marketing. These cattle are not smaller than a 4.5 frame score and the top end don't do into a frame 6... they stay steady in between. They have guts which means they have a great back, which means they have good carcass yield. Finally because of how they are used as part of a grazing system in New Zealand that follows the sheep and that have to perform on the worst of the pastures, the fact they are given no supplementation, bred under a closed herd line bred program for 60 plus years that did not follow fads but rather internal performance .... that's why we went with what we did and why I am confident in these cattle. I looked in a lot of places but did not see anyone doing that her in North America with those kind of objectives.

[WSS]

Christoph, yes I was implying that you were navel gazing, but just teasing.

I'm very happy with how the Pinebank 14'02 daughters are doing this far in their young lives.

[gaucho]

Just wanted to make it clear. Many can be swayed by hype and I guess that is what some do for marketing but its really important to ask the questions and dissect the information... seems the Scottish are good at that

[RShields]

I keep thinkin if I was only in cattle for a relatively short time and I was selling as many bulls to the faithful as I could raise AND they were willing to pay $4000 for them...
Should I cull for only the best or should I take advantage of all that good marketing.
It appears to me that when most of the popular breeding stock suppliers find they don't have enough supply to fill demand they quickly buy breds and calve out bulls that carry their prefix for their next sale.
There are more than a few really good breeders out there. Some of the best know a lot more about breeding than marketing and seem to be happy with that.

[smcgrath76]

There are some really good programs that
use cooperator herds. I think that is a
good way to grow your herd size, control
the quality of the program and share the
benefits of economies of scale for
promotion, etc. A lot of good cattle
are bred in cooperator herds that may
not have the marketing expertise, and it
is a good way to rapidly make an impact
in the marketplace (particularly for
young breeders).