Outside the Box

[cowman]

Exactly Sean! Every cow guy breeding for the commercial market should be cross breeding, otherwise you leave a lot of bucks on the table...period!
The so called ideal is two maternal breeds to produce an F1 female then crossed to a terminal sire. Roy Berg of the U of A showed very clearly that you can maintain hybrid vigor with many more breeds in the mix but for simplicity sake the F1 X Terminal sire is the easiest to maintain...and by the way that can be tricky!
Linebreeding has absolutely no financial reward for your commercial breeder...or in fact your purebred breeder who is selling into the commercial market.

[higainranching]

Are you talking about producing a quality product or a commodity product?

For years the producer has been paid for pounds of beef across the scale with little premium for a high quality consistant product but I believe this will change.If you want to keep a high quality,uniform cross bred calf going across that scale it's imperative you use a great sire.

This is my short interpretation of Gearld Fry's theories:
Linebreeding can be used effectively to create these bulls.You select your very best cows and breed them to a superior bull who has a brother or other close relative who is also superior that you can use on his daughters. You are now concentrating the bloodlines of the kind of animals you want.And in the process you are creating sires that are of paternal,not maternal descent.This creates predictability.

Now you can start to take some of the bulls that this "elite" herd is producing and turn them in with your commercial cow herd.This will over time make your home raised animals related to some extent.Breed you best to your best regardless of lineage at least in enough numbers to maintain your replacements.You are creating a cow herd that excells in your environment under your conditions.If you feel it is necessary to outcross to maintain your highbred vigour this cross must be terminal.Any outside blood you feel is needed in your maternal herd do it by bringing in females not bulls.You have created good paternal bulls that you cannot buy anywhere else and you do not want to lose this.

This method of breeding requires a great understanding of your animals and their genetics to make the right matings.If you undertake it do your homework and seek advice when needed.

[cswilson]

I've seen some great herds that were bred on the premise that every bull has a great mother.Ourselves we are running 4 half brothers as cleanup bulls after A.I. all from a superior cow. As for buying in replacements unless they come from a very similare management system it's hard to make them work. Why does an outcross to utilize heterosis have to be strictly terminal? I guess I'm willing to sacrifice genetic utopia for a workable alternative that an average cowboy can keep straight. Gerald Fry seems to portray the majority of our cattle to be genetically inferior. This is simply not so-we routinely hit 90 plus percent AAA or better on the quality grid we sell on. This is from a Xbred cowherd that is selected on 'the pretty is as pretty does' principle.

[cowman]

I would suggest we are producing a quality commodity? The fact is just about every animal, if they are fed right, and processed right produces beef that is acceptable to the consumer?
Now perhaps people can squeeze a few cents more out of that consumer by being "breed specific" or branded or whatever, but is it worth giving up hybrid vigor?
The fact is no matter what breed we raise, what we are really selling is grass? And the trick is to breed the animal who will use that grass in the most efficient manner and return us the most profit per acre?
The "fads" come and go but that old cow just has to carry on doing her job of raising a big calf, rebreeding every year on time and not eating us out of house and home? If you can keep that cow, crossbred, she will do it better than a purebred...that has been proven a long time ago!

[cowman]

Correct me if I am wrong; but do not all (or most) branded beef programs include crossbred cattle sired by the breed you hope to promote? Ours does.

[smcgrath76]

Just to clarify. In terms of commodity production, perhaps the term I should have used was mainstream production. I still believe that hybrid vigour is imperative in commercial beef production. The big gains in fertility, longevity, disease resistance, and some gains in growth rate and feed conversion (read solar energy into protein) cannot be ignored.
It is possible to produce consistent, quality product through crossbreeding, in fact this is what chicken and pork and grains have done.
The argument about where the genes come from and buying versus raising replacements are largely management dependent. It is true that there is an environmental effect that gives an advantage to "home raised" replacement females.
By keeping related females and breeding them to related bulls, we will fix genes in the subpopulation, and will also see some inbreeding depression, however when crossed on an outside sire, the progeny will express major hybrid vigour. The challenge is the hybrid vigour you may lose in the cowherd (read fertility, longevity). It is possible to counterbalance this somewhat with different breeding schemes, but you have to manage the herd appropriately to do this.
There is some good stuff out of USDA MARC. http://sol.marc.usda.gov/

Hope this helps clarify a bit.

[higainranching]

Here's a link to an interesting website I found in the latest stockman grass farmer.Check out their breeding philosophy.
www.touchstoneangus.com

[nerves]

Highgain check out threads wondering by cowman and igenity is a scam by purecountry we discuss this in great detail. It also leads to question what is really a superior blood line and what do you have to back it up.