Breeding heifers.

[BroncoFan]

I’m trying to write this without bashing on anyone. I’m just hoping someone can educate me on the why. I’m hoping for a good and honest discussion without the mud flinging. I want to talk about breeding heifer divisions at jackpot shows. The kind I’m preferring to is the kind where all breeds and crossbreds compete in the same division. In my mind, usually the champion is flat and a tick frail.
Most of the time the champion is an angus, simangus, or Simmental. When I look at these champion heifers, I wonder if they’ll ever make a competitive show steer. Some might tell me that their place is to produce heifers or bulls. In the beef industry, do we want flat light boned cattle? If so, the champion steer should also be a little bit flat and frail. I think they’re a disconnect between the market steer division and the breeding heifer division. The market steer had a mother to hopefully calved on her own and milked.
Now I’m not saying a super clubby market heifer should win a breeding division show but I believe a breeding heifer should have a little shape and bone. I’m still waiting on watching a Shorthorn, Maine, Hereford, etc to win a breed show. I watched some good heifers that are just as sound but are still feminine but get dinged because they have a little shape and a little power.
I’m looking at as a perspective of a parent and wondering if it will ever be worth dragging a heifer to a show. We just wouldn’t make any money on trying to make show steers out of these champion breeding heifers.

 

[knabe]

bone and power, round bone instead of flat is not feminine.


it's a sign, not necessarily true, that hormones are not optimum for year after year fertility.


this is born out by years of experience by animal breeders of all breeders and mother nature herself.


it's hard to resist picking females that look like steers.

 

[BroncoFan]

I’m not saying we should pick heifers that look like steers. I’m just wondering why the heifers have to be 2D.

 

[BroncoFan]

I guess what I’m trying to say is in my opinion the champion breeding heifer that I’m describing her steer calves probably won’t ever be competitive in the show ring and the champion market steers sisters probably won’t be competitive in a breeding show. There isn’t a correlation or connection between the two.

 

[knabe]

maybe a string of pictures of females that have had champion fort worth etc steers would be in order and compare them to winning breeding females.

champion steers are probably freaks and not easily reproducible.

i wonder how many cows people have and sift through that other people have to find the champions steer.

at some level, there can only be one champion steer.

has there ever been a female that has had the champion steer and champion female in the same show in the same year?

i don't think very many steers would clone well and make bulls that make good steers.

who knows.


good topic.

 

[CRS]

Knabe, there is the Solid Gold Bull of Brandon Horn’s that was a clone of a champion show steer and has gone on to be a big part in their program.

 

[RyanChandler]

"shape and power" are certainly not traits I want to see in breeding females. The hormones that are responsible for shape and power are antagonistic to female reproduction.  Id like to see them move towards an even more feminine design.  The cattleman that are dinging those buff heifers do so because they've turned those types out before and realized how poorly they performed.  IF anything, the disconnect is that the steers are way too extreme.  It takes an androgynous if not masculine type female to create the winning market type steers: a type cow that just doesn't exist outside the halter world.  So you have to pick which lane youre going to play in: show steers or breeding show heifers or beef cattle.  There are very specialized cattle in each group- but like with all things specialized, they tend to do horribly outside their specific lane.

 

[Chuck Wagon]

Excellent point X-Bar, you have to decide what program you want.  With the technology available to us now, cloning, sexed semen, ET, we can do thing with our program that we didn't have 50 years ago.

Market heifers and breeding heifers are two very different animals and truth be known, the breeder getting a market heifer wanted a steer.  Market heifers have their place in producing functional calves depending on bull selection. 

I heard a podcast talking about a Judge giving reasons for placing and saying his donor is sitting in third, but can't move her up because she has too much power. 

 

[BroncoFan]

We should stop showing our Maine and Shorthorn heifers and just focus on steers even though we aren’t having trouble getting them to breed up and our friends can’t get their angus and simangus heifers to settle.

 

[BroncoFan]

Can anyone point me towards reputable websites that explain the correlation between shape/bone and it being hormonal?

 

[RyanChandler]

Not specifically relevant but should give some conceptual insight as to the mechanisms at play.

Search hormones and their impact on body composition. 


https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/80/4/966/4690404

 

[mark tenenbaum]

Basically if you look at Chris Blacks, Horns, and a number of similar sales you will see sisters, dams etc to some of the Fort Worth  winning steers-This year Black has almost 400 head in his sale-That many cattle didnt just lounge around a barnyard And they are some pretty freaky looking females There are way more of those types in that market but they have to work just like the other cows From what Ive seen lately the show  deal is starting to change a little-to sounder steers with more performance And they look a little more like breeding cattle-picked it up too in kris blacks comments RE the bulls hes selling -So functional and  carcass characteristics are beginning to come into play The Champion Shorthorn steer at iowa beef expo who was reserve at Badger behind a big time Fereer calf  is a Fresh Air-and he looks like a rodeo drive albeit thicker with tremendous grow-But from seems like a growing  new perspective - he is right there O0

 

[BroncoFan]

I agree about taking away some mass and making a sounder steer. We just think we can't breed for flatter heifers than this one that has too much shape and bone. Also not feminine enough.

 

[WinterSpringsFarm]

Right now they have to be tremendously flat shouldered, freaky necked and clean chested, but have some width through the chest floor, top, and hip.  Be deep sided, open ribbed, have ample bone size that goes all the way to the foot, and be "squishy" footed.

I like them with some power and shape, but not to the extreme that it sacrifices femininity, and I also don't like them dairy cow frail either.  I agree with whats been said already though, if they are making big time show steers, they aren't likely to be making good heifers.

 

[simba]

BroncoFan I agree with you. In Western Canada as a rule we generally select females with a little extra natural muscle shape and power because frail cattle don’t do well in our environment. I realize that XBAR disagrees with that and that’s fine but as the environment changes so does the selection criteria. A very successful Hereford breeder once told me that they purposely breed for cattle with a little throat because those tight necked ones don’t work where they are and I completely agree.

If the heifer you posted is an example of what you’re showing I’d say you’re doing something right. I’d take her over a frail boned, freaky necked, flat made heifer any day- both in the ring and the pasture.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

I agree I really like that heifer I"m a SUCKER FOR SOWS too those thick Herefords and the  appearing ones in Texas-Oklahoma and the extremely rare thick oldschool Shorthorns still stop me in my tracks O0

 

[BroncoFan]

Mark, I really like that cow! IMO, she should be a breeding female anywhere.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

Yea buddy-She was held over for a mid june for her first calf -and if I win the lottery Im gonna track her down and try and flush her to a Shorthorn-My choice tho it would prob be white would be DJS Outsider Those Chris Black cattle are the real deal as far as cows-caution on the BWS tho The phone pics  dont do justice- There are some real nice breds on his sale Tough to have all the pieces made like that but several do and have the scale , fronts and wheels along with thick O0

 

[jconner2088]

Mark did you buy that one? I went and lolked at her she is flat.out awesome. I actually own the full sister to the lot 1 in that moylan sale. We are flushing her shorthorn hard this next go round. I wanted to buy that shorthorn bad. But just wrong time for us to buy.

 

[RyanChandler]

Looks more like a steer than a fertile cow to me. 


Reasonable for environment to have impact on scale but should have no bearing on composition.