Weaning Weights & Breed of Choice

[lisapowell]

We raise commercial cattle and sell our calves in the fall through Stettler Auction Mart. In the opinion of feedlot buyers, what is the optimal weight that they like to purchase steers at so that they finish at the correct weight in the correct amount of time? I am asking this because we are looking for a herd bull and trying to find one with the performance EPDs that would work best for us. We are going to buy a registered Angus bull so that we can use the Certified Angus Tags but we are having trouble deciding between red or black angus. Is there really any market difference between the two? If buyers are looking for angus influenced cattle and they are assuming that black=angus then shouldn't we do just as well with red angusX calves with the angus tags? Our calves will have proof of angus influence so does it really matter what colour they are, or is there more to the issue of red or black? Thanks for your opinions, Lisa

[jmillang]

Lisa I'ld like to try and answer your question with a question, is your cow herd of a similiar genetic make up?. If there is a variation in your cow base the use of epd's is somewhat academic. Yes they will allow you to compare bull to bull based on a steady cow herd (genetically) but when we start throwing around heterosis and inter breed mixes different traits interact differently with different breeds and if we start to try and select for multiple traits with EPD's we have a tremendously complex problem. There is a good web site from Colorado State dealing with frequently asked questions about EPD's http://ops.agsci.colostate.edu/~scomstoc/qa/question.htm There is also an organinzation called the Beef Improvement Federation that has a committee that does genetic evaluation work and they often update cross breed EPD ajustments the last table I have found is at this site http://ops.agsci.colostate.edu/~scomstoc/across.html Here is some good information about cross breeding and the impact of different crosses. http://www.redangus1.org/newredsite/crossbreedingprograms/crossbreed.html While digging these up I came across the American Certified angus Beef CAB program and they are looking at Black as being the prerequiste for the program here is the CAB program website http://www.cabprogram.com/ And here is the Canadian Angus Beef program http://www.cdnangus.ca/cdnangus.htm Good luck with you choice.

[lisapowell]

Thanks for your response Jeff. I think that you understood my question to be much more complicated than it really is. I was only just curious if feedlot buyers had a certain weight range that they like calves to be. I thought that might be information that I could use. The bull we buy will be a terminal sire as we are hoping to buy registered angus heifers for replacements as our goal is to raise purebreds along with our commercial cattle. The purebred cattle that we buy would be AI bred. At present, we have a herd of red baldies and we are looking for a registered angus sire with high WW EPDs. I understand that I could probably get better hybrid vigor with a sire of a different breed, but we love the angus breed and strongly believe in it's bright future. For our commercial cattle we want to take advantage of the Certified Angus Tags in the hope that they will help to attract the attention of the buyers looking for angus influenced cattle. As for the issue of red or black, we prefer red but there appears to be market advantages to black. I know that the CAB program in Canada accepts red or black and the American CAB only accepts black. I thought that the American program really wouldn't have much effect on me as I assumed that most feeder cattle purchased at my local auction mart would go to domestic feedlots. This assumption may have been wrong. Maybe you could shed some light on this. I guess the real issue for us is that we don't want to jump on the black bandwagon unless there is real market advantages for us. This may all be irrelavent, but we are just starting out and we are trying to set goals for our cattle business and make the most educated choices as possible. Thanks again for your help, Lisa