Following the money

[pandiana]

On rereading my previous thread I thought it looked like a blanket endoresment of Hereford cattle over other breeds. It's not. My point was that Hereford serves as an choice to maximize production in a particular environment. Alicia, you do bring up strong points in support of Hereford and other smaller frame breeds. Having said that, it's a little hard to find some of those small Herefords and Angus cows. I recently saw a 3000lb Hereford bull and there are many 2000 lbs Angus cows out there.

[Bruce14]

Cowman if you used that much Charolais for that long why is there not more Charolais ifluence in your remaining cows.

No offence intended just curious.

[Bruce14]

P.S. Happy new year Cowman and all other Agri-ville users. Hoping that the 2004 will bring some better news to Canada and the beef industry.

[cowman]

Bruce: I never kept any of the heifers, well almost none. I kept them one year and they were good cows but they tended to be a little furosious(sp?) for my liking. And I will admit I've kept an occasional one now and then so I have about 8 tan cows. At one time those tan whitefaced heifers sold like hotcakes into the bred market and I did that a couple of times.
Sometimes it has been a struggle getting enough replacements and that is why I use the Sim and Angus AI. My AI calves are always out of my better older cows so they are usually a keeper.
And I will admit I bought in cows when the great cow boom happened in the late nineties...not many of them have stayed.
Perhaps it would have made more sense to just buy F1 females and use Char bulls on them but for me that wouldn't really be the cattle business. I like to experiment and play around with them. I'm not just in it for the money. And finally I believe it takes a long time to build the cow you want and it is difficult to just go out and buy her.

[grassfarmer]

Alicia, I think you will soon be able to call Herefords a "new world breed" rather than a British one as they are virtually extinct in the UK now. The biggest problem with them in Europe is that when fattened on grass they have a thick layer of yellow fat which is unacceptable to consumers. They are approaching rare breed status now, a fact that has been hastened by the use of the polled strain which appeared to be poorer cattle than the horned ones.

[15444]

Alot of British breeds, including Hereford and Angus are listed as rare breeds in the UK.

[grassfarmer]

Angus have actually made quite a come back in the last 10 years, due in part to a branded angus beef program. They are not heading for rare breed status any time soon. Herefords are, as are Galloways to a lesser extent.

[15444]

http://www.rare-breeds.com/html/rare_breeds/cattle/critical/aberdeen_angus.html

[ALICIA]

My herefords are the polled strain. The horn strain loses you about 3c per pound for some reason as you all know.
I've had a few of the 2000lb ers but I just hate them, they bust up the feeders and they eat to much. Most of my polled herefords are around 1500 with still a few that run 1800. But the 1500lb is my target weight. With a hieght of 56 or 57 inchs.
We all are a rare breed, are we not?

[pandiana]

Alicia, it's interesting that polling an animal would have this much effect on production years after the polled gene has become established. When polling purebreds of many breeds, strongly selecting for the polled gene had a tendency to ignore some of the important quantitative traits. As a result some of the earlier polled animals may have been deficient. But it does surprise me that it persists.

[grassfarmer]

15444, I note that the cattle listed as citical on that website are "original aberdeen angus". The vast majority of Angus cattle in the UK have north American blood in them which means they aren't counted. It's a bit like saying the Charolais is endangered in Canada because there are only x number of "full French" cattle.
DEFRA lists an average of 170,000 angus sired cattle registered through the passport system annually in recent years. This counts both pedigree and crossbred calves.

[countryguy]

I would like to put a different spin on this conversation.

I look at the beef business as being a GRASS business in which we are turning what we grow on our land into a saleable product.Therefor I feel the best cow and the one that is going to make you the most money is the one that has the best feed efficiency.Feed is the cattleman biggest expense so I feel we need cows that are going to produce the most amount of beef on the least amount of feed.

I think we would be much farther ahead focussing on production and profit per acre than chasing the latest fad at the auction mart.

[ALICIA]

Their is no auction mart. So I guess we can all follow the latest fad as long as the money and feed from other souces hold out, and we don't bankrupt our self before their is a auction mart again.

[cowman]

country guy: I agree with you totally about the profit/acre thing. Sometimes we have to follow a fad or a trend to get the most profit. An example was the trend to tan calves in the past and to blacks now. Definitely get a cow that will work for you and a system that will work for you.
For some people maxxing out profit is not their main goal! Now you and me might consider it the most important but for some it is very low on the totem pole.
I'll never forget telling my Dad he should run a Char bull with his cows. When he asked why I said because you can make a lot more money. His reply "Where did you ever get the idea I wanted to make more money?" Well I guess it shocked me that anyone would think that way, oh greedy little pig that I am! But you see he was quite content with his profit level and really didn't need the extra money. And thats how it is with a lot of these old boys.

[pandiana]

Actually, countryguy, I think what we have been talking about here is feed efficiency, at least as it pertains to the inherited traits in various breeds of cattle that allow that cow to maximize efficiency for their particular environment. Frame size for example has been hotly debated for years as it pertains to efficiency. Many of the measurements that are taken over the years, such as weaning weight, yearling weights, lbs of calf weaned per cow exposed, lbs of calf weaned per cow weight , have all been an effort to zero in on efficiency or making the most return on your investment by choosing the right breeding stock.

As all cows turn grass into beef, efficiency can be influenced by management of grass and resources on one hand, as well as the inherited characteristics of the cattle that harvest it. Rotational grazing has been shown to dramatically increase the efficiency of pasture usage through management. But this is a more complex problem than just turning grass into beef, at least in this country because we have limited ways of measuring feed efficiency for each animal directly. Where I live we have been feeding cows these past few years, for seven months. Management practice would also greatly influence winter feeding as to having access to cheap feed, low overhead etc. We need grain, pellets, silage, hay, or straw, all coming with extra production costs. How do you measure feed efficiency for cows other than in measuring her output in her calf? If you have a feedlot situation were you can weigh feed for a group of cattle, you could then calculate cost per head, but that doesn’t tell you which cow is most efficient. I think this is why some of these measurement collected by seedstock producers as well as feedlots through feed trials have been used to generate new EPD’s such as Feedlot Merit which tries to measure feed efficiency through measurements of carcass weight, lean meat yield, ribeye etc.. to come up with an efficiency measure of some sort.