Docility and feed conversion

[Okotoks]

I just received my April Shorthorn Country and there is a good article in there about docility "RESEARCH REVEALS VALUE OF SELECTING CALM CATTLE CATTLE". There was similar research to this a few years ago which of course leads me to my self serving INFOMERCIAL OF THE DAY

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

okotoks,out of respect I ask you this question. I think you will give me your honest opinion. What do you think about Patrick Walls article? I have brought this up earlier but nobody answered. According to him, bulls with lighter bw sold for more money. I am not trying to argue. Just showing you what rules down here.  The weaning weight portion of his article was also interesting.

Interesting to here everyones thoughts.

 

[Okotoks]

okotoks,out of respect I ask you this question. I think you will give me your honest opinion. What do you think about Patrick Walls article? I have brought this up earlier but nobody answered. According to him, bulls with lighter bw sold for more money. I am not trying to argue. Just showing you what rules down here.  The weaning weight portion of his article was also interesting.

Interesting to here everyones thoughts.

I thought it was a good article. I think most buyers would rather buy the lighter birth weight bull especially if he still has performance. I also think most commercial bull buyers like as much information as they can get including EPD's. I found it interesting that going through the same magazine there were no epd's listed on any of the bulls until the last page beside the inside back cover. The two bulls from Select Sires had all their EPD's listed. There was a birth weight EPD listed on one other bull but no weaning, yearling or milk epd's. I'm sure in the past a lot more epd's were given. I think as breeders we need to provide as much information as possible. It would appear that within the breed there is not much emphasis on epd's but as Patrick Wall's article points out it may be costing the seller money if he isn't paying attention.

 

[r.n.reed]

I think one of the reasons a lot of those bulls may not have listed their epd's is because of the  breeds emphasis on low birthweight.My pet peeve is listing epd's without accuracy levels,especially on the older bulls.It's amazing to me when someone advertises a bull as easy calving and the first calves have not hit the ground yet or the bull  has decent epd's because of a fire and ice mating and they call him a sure thing.This thing takes time, especially if your trying to save some other worthwhile traits in the process.

 

[Okotoks]

I think one of the reasons a lot of those bulls may not have listed their epd's is because of the  breeds emphasis on low birthweight.My pet peeve is listing epd's without accuracy levels,especially on the older bulls.It's amazing to me when someone advertises a bull as easy calving and the first calves have not hit the ground yet or the bull  has decent epd's because of a fire and ice mating and they call him a sure thing.This thing takes time, especially if your trying to save some other worthwhile traits in the process.

I agree that on young bulls EPD's need to be used with some caution. I remember when a young bull was promoted even by the ASA as the next great bull based on his EPD's. Although they were referring to his performance EPD's, his EPD's later when a lot of calves were on the ground showed little performance but he was low BW and CE.
Wouldn't it just save the buyers a lot of time if they could get the EPD's from the ad rather than look them up.

 

[knabe]

if there's a difference in bw due to latitude, why don't some canadian breeders get together and calve out some cows in iowa, nebraska, kansas, oklahoma or texas?

 

[xxcc]

if there's a difference in bw due to latitude, why don't some canadian breeders get together and calve out some cows in iowa, nebraska, kansas, oklahoma or texas?

yeah, let's just run one big experiment and move all the really productive powerful northern cattle to the mid-west and see what happens.  let's leave the rest of the continent wide open for the construction of a loony bin.  your suggestion is absurd, and by the way, not very cost effective.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

if there's a difference in bw due to latitude, why don't some canadian breeders get together and calve out some cows in iowa, nebraska, kansas, oklahoma or texas?

yeah, let's just run one big experiment and move all the really productive powerful northern cattle to the mid-west and see what happens.  let's leave the rest of the continent wide open for the construction of a loony bin.  your suggestion is absurd, and by the way, not very cost effective.

Easy big fella. I thought it was a cool idea. He said "some cows". Are the cattle up their more powerful because its colder? Now thats a absurd question. Have a beer, watch some old re runs of Hee Haw. Relax.

 

[JTM]

okotoks,out of respect I ask you this question. I think you will give me your honest opinion. What do you think about Patrick Walls article? I have brought this up earlier but nobody answered. According to him, bulls with lighter bw sold for more money. I am not trying to argue. Just showing you what rules down here.  The weaning weight portion of his article was also interesting.

Interesting to here everyones thoughts.

Okotoks, I currently have a two year old Black Angus bull in a lot right beside TG/RRA Complete which is 3/4 shorthorn. It is very clear of the difference between the two when it comes to docility. The Angus will breed some heifers this summer and he will be gone and replaced by a calving ease shorthorn bull.
TrevorGrey, I did like the article by Patrick in the SC. I sent him a message and told him I thought it was really good. The numbers were very interesting. I think this is definitely an issue that the breed needs to get a hold of. My remark to Patrick was, "hopefully we can begin to get accurate birthweights turned in". If your going to turn in birthweights then they need to be weighed. I try to guess birthweights every year and there are always times where you can be 10-15 lbs off! I weighed a bull calf yesterday that I swore was 105 lbs but he was 92. Other calves I thought were 75 ended up being 90 lbs. We always guess the weights and that keeps us knowing that they need to be weighed in order to turn in the weights. I would love to make this Eldorado bull calf out of Della's Solution about 95 lbs but he was 108.

 

[Okotoks]

I received this info from a friend and fellow breeder who is modest and asked to remain anonymous as he says these results are typical of most Shorthorns on feed.

"These 10 heifers were weaned on Sept. 6th 2010 and ran on pasture until around the first of November. After they started eating wheat midds pellets (15% protein), I worked them up to 5 lbs/day. They had free access to wild type meadow grass hay that tested just under 9% protein. They have gained well over the winter and are looking really good. They have been out with the cows for the past 2 weeks and are on grass hay plus salt and mineral only. They are bulling like crazy and maintaining flesh very well.

Here are the averages on the 10 heifers:

Age in Days-323; Scan Weight-763; Rump fat Adj- .35; Rib Fat Adj- .36; Rib Eye Area Adj.-10.5; IMF Adj- 5.2
 
The inputs on these heifers were relatively low. They were all managed together, and fed the midds from the same trough. Of course, some are more aggressive eaters than others! I'm very  confident they will all be fertile long lasting mother cows. I'm also confident that in a feedlot environment, they would have made a packer very happy."

I think the main point is that Shorthorn would make a great cross on commercial black cattle and still maintain and even improve carcass. As well there will be more performance due to hybrid vigor!

 

[garybob]

if there's a difference in bw due to latitude, why don't some canadian breeders get together and calve out some cows in iowa, nebraska, kansas, oklahoma or texas?

yeah, let's just run one big experiment and move all the really productive powerful northern cattle to the mid-west and see what happens.  let's leave the rest of the continent wide open for the construction of a loony bin.  your suggestion is absurd, and by the way, not very cost effective.

Easy big fella. I thought it was a cool idea. He said "some cows". Are the cattle up their more powerful because its colder? Now thats a absurd question. Have a beer, watch some old re runs of Hee Haw. Relax.

.....and I'm a grinnin'!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D

 

[garybob]

if there's a difference in bw due to latitude, why don't some canadian breeders get together and calve out some cows in iowa, nebraska, kansas, oklahoma or texas?

yeah, let's just run one big experiment and move all the really productive powerful northern cattle to the mid-west and see what happens.  let's leave the rest of the continent wide open for the construction of a loony bin.  your suggestion is absurd, and by the way, not very cost effective.

First of all, xxcc, You are wrong about the validity of such an experiment. Just ask about the similiar research done by Cundiff, et all, and the staff at the MARC.

GB

 

[Okotoks]

Today's Infomercial
Some carcass results from Sydney that support the fact the hide does not have to be black to get a top carcass!  (clapping)

http://www.shorthorn.com.au/public/PropertyProductDisplay.asp?PID=N12226&RURL=/postings/10801/news/News12226.html

SHORTHORN BEEF News
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SHORTHORNS WIN STAN HILL TROPHY AT SYDNEY ROYAL
Published: 20 Apr 2011
News ID: 12226 
The Stan Hill trophy is awarded to the team of three purebred steers which have the highest combined carcase scores.

Members of the team were, St Josephs High School & Turanville Shorthorns, Yanco High School & Outback Shorthorns, Calrossy Anglican School & Turanville Shorthorns.

The placings were

Shorthorn 255.5
Poll Hereford 255.0
Murray Grey 251.5
Angus 248.0
Simmental 246.0
Charolais 241.0
Galloway 238.5
Limousin 234.5
Red Poll 233.0
Belted Galloway 230.5
Square Meaters 221.5
Hereford 221.0
Maine Anjou 213.5

The first Turanville steer was by Turanville Chicago, second by Kelvyn Downs Zulu Z115 and the Outback Steer By Lachlan Mastercard B061.

 

[knabe]

some loony bin

maybe the maine's are the one's in the loony bin.

 

[aj]

If all the cattle weren't fed the same ration are these results significant?

 

[knabe]

If all the cattle weren't fed the same ration are these results significant?

no.  it's called jumping the stack or stacking error.  that's why contemporary groups are important.

 

[aj]

I couldn't find if it was a halter cattle contest or feedlot test or what.

 

[Okotoks]

If all the cattle weren't fed the same ration are these results significant?

At the very least it shows the Shorthorn steers were capable of producing top carcasses. I suppose it could show that none of the other breeds know how to feed steers,(very unlikely) maybe the Shorthorn team didn't know how to feed steers either but they won anyway. JA you just always have a glass half empty don't you? ???

 

[aj]

No. I would sincerely like to find objective data that would deterime a marbling bull in say the shorthorn breed. Then I could stack pedigree's toward that end. All this data is good I guess but you can't compare outside the contemporary group or whatever. Seems like now the big thing is to feed on carcass quality in the showring cattle. You can't use this data though. If you creep feed a calf from 1 month old on......you can't compare him to a bull that doesn't get this treatment. I just wish we had more comparitive data. Justa wishing I guess.

 

[Okotoks]

We had ours bulls DNA tested by Igenity but I have no idea how closely their results correlate to actual on the rail data. All of them were 7 and 8's.
The Australians are quite a bit ahead on collecting carcass data. The steers from the Durham project are all rail graded. As well they keep track of feed efficiency in the Durham Project. I believe they scan a lot more of their bulls as well.
I guess we really need to get some steers gathered up and collect some data. If only we had some money......................

Here's a link
http://www.durhamresearch.com.au/