? for the Shorthorn Experts.

[sue]

Nate,
I said this in a private message today and to you before over the phone:

You are soon to be in the drivers seat for Purebred and Shorthorn/Angus composites Bull sales with real data to back em !  Why do we buy bulls without it?

 

[Okotoks]

What bull or bulls are at the top of the breed for marbling?  Birthweight needs to be reasonable (less than 95), docility needs to be excellent, moderate growth, capable of siring a high percentage of prime calves (choice is not good enough to qualify).  A more terminal animal, maternal traits would be nice but not necessary.  Ideas?

This is also something I have also been trying to identify. We have used The Grove Kookaburra W735 and have a couple of ET bull calves by him. He is a trait leader in Australia for BW and CE, milk as well as for Ribeye and Marbling. Accuracies in these traits are 83 to 95%.
We also have a QH Questing DSTNY OQ11 bull calf(95 lb BW recip is a black commercial cow)
DSTNY is in the top 2% of the breed for marbling and top 1% for REA, top 1% for MCE and top 3% for MCE. His BW and CE however are at the bottom of the breed. We have actually had 4 calves by him and never had a calving issue. If everything goes well all three of these calves will see service in a commercial herd that retains ownersip on the steers to slaughter. Identifying animals that are good across all traits is a challenge.

 

[RyanChandler]

Why do we buy bulls without it?

The data only makes them predictable, not necessarily superior- with data on so few, it gives no insight as to the quality of the individual relative to the quality of the breed as a whole; only to the quality of the individual relative to other individuals who data has also been submitted on. 

 

[JTM]

I'm most familiar with Western Canadian genetics herds like ourselves, Crooked Post, Eionmor, Glenford, Horseshoe Creek, Northern as well as many others. 

I would think that A&T Renegade would be a bull that would have outstanding marbling due to how his sire was bred and selected for. He definitely has the BW from what JTM has been posting.

Thanks Jaimie and you are right on with your prediction. Renegade was scanned in a group of 12 bulls at A&T. He was number one with a 115 ratio and 11.0 adj. Rib Eye Area. He had the most rump fat among all the bulls and was second in Rib Fat.  % IM Fat he had a 96 ratio at 3.48 adj. We were very happy with the results.

 

[Okotoks]

Why do we buy bulls without it?

The data only makes them predictable, not necessarily superior- with data on so few, it gives no insight as to the quality of the individual relative to the quality of the breed as a whole; only to the quality of the individual relative to other individuals who data has also been submitted on.

I think this is a very important point. There are great cattle out there that have not had the data collected. From a marketing stand point it's important to have the numbers but do you really want to discount cattle that might be better. We are using a bull this year with no data but his calves so far look to be above average, time will tell but unfortunately it takes a lot of time.

 

[knabe]

only to the quality of the individual relative to other individuals who data has also been submitted on.

this is referring to what is known as a contemporary group.


one can compare rankings across contemporary groups as individuals are ranked on a continuum which we all sort of do without knowing it anyway.

 

[sue]

Looking for Kill data with Prime carcass data sired by shorthorn.

 

[jaimiediamond]

Looking for Kill data with Prime carcass data sired by shorthorn.

I've made a call to a commercial calving to hook producer that has used Diamond, Saskvalley, Eionmor, Horseshoecreek, and Muridale bulls.  I asked if I could have his kill data information and if he was happy to provide. I mentioned I would be putting it on-line he still did not hesitate stating he was happy with the results.  I will be picking the information up tomorrow. 

Unfortunately as the bulls run in groups I can just point out they are Shorthorn influenced calves with the potential sires.  Most large commercial operations in Canada run more than 2 bulls per pasture making individual data collection difficult especially as most commercially sold bulls are not collected.  What most Canadian programs do is provide the scan information for the buyers and they determine which bulls are best suited to their program.  This has provided many repeat customers in both commercial and purebred operations. 

 

[aj]

I personally think that marbling on a carcass.....and fleshing ability in a cow on the range are corellated. If it is.......it would make sense to me that selecting for high imf for a maternal breed would make a LOT of sense. Where as selecting for high rib eye......in a maternal breed is insane. jmo

 

[RyanChandler]

There's gotta be more to it than that, AJ. A herd of jerseys will starve to death at your place.

 

[JTM]

I personally think that marbling on a carcass.....and fleshing ability in a cow on the range are corellated. If it is.......it would make sense to me that selecting for high imf for a maternal breed would make a LOT of sense. Where as selecting for high rib eye......in a maternal breed is insane. jmo

AJ, I've actually recently read where selecting for back fat would potentially be a better selection tool for maternal traits and fleshing ability than IMF. The article said that back fat is much more heritable than IMF and would could be a selection tool for more consistency in fleshing ability and maternal traits in cattle. The IMF in a lot of my hard doing show cattle lines of Shorthorns I would suspect have still been really good in my opinion while eating the steaks. It's an interesting point you bring up and I think it is something we should all be looking at for potential selection items.

 

[knabe]

I'm not sold on the idea of hard doing with less backfat but more marbling.

The fat is in a different spot and more difficult to measure.

I would not be afraid to have known marbling and one less bcs than less marbling and more backfat as long as total fat was same.

One has to be careful about fat as Holsteins look hard doing but simply have more marbling and more internal fat as external fat has been deselected off their back and selected for elsewhere including coming out their teats. I don't buy the argument. I think it's a flawed selection criteria.

 

[Duncraggan]

I personally think that marbling on a carcass.....and fleshing ability in a cow on the range are corellated. If it is.......it would make sense to me that selecting for high imf for a maternal breed would make a LOT of sense. Where as selecting for high rib eye......in a maternal breed is insane. jmo

AJ, I've actually recently read where selecting for back fat would potentially be a better selection tool for maternal traits and fleshing ability than IMF. The article said that back fat is much more heritable than IMF and would could be a selection tool for more consistency in fleshing ability and maternal traits in cattle. The IMF in a lot of my hard doing show cattle lines of Shorthorns I would suspect have still been really good in my opinion while eating the steaks. It's an interesting point you bring up and I think it is something we should all be looking at for potential selection items.

JTM, that makes a lot of sense.
I am not an animal scientist and don't profess to be, but the consultant I got in in late 2013 to fine tune my selection process was a breath of fresh air.  Of those scanned last year, the bulls with the better rib and rump fat scans were the ones that always looked to be in better condition than their contemporaries while being grown out.
I have subsequently changed my selection policy to a more low-input system.  My bull sale in 2013 yielded a very low profit margin and I needed a review!
Over the last year I have watched the progress of my 2014 sale bulls regularly and selected more for 'easy doing' cattle, I threw out the one with the highest indexes for 100- and 200-day gains as he was too extreme and 'harder doing'.  Another one with good indexes and a wooly coat is also being prepared for the hook.  In a group there are always those that always look fat, have sleeker coats in summer and still give above average indexes, although sometimes not stellar.
Will see what the consultant finds when he scans in August and what the buyers say in September, should be interesting.

 

[knabe]

the bulls with the better rib and rump fat scans were the ones that always looked to be in better condition than their contemporaries while being grown out.

they looked to be in better condition, but if you plotted IMF with rump and rib fat, what animals have lower rib and rump fat, but higher marbling? ask your consultant their experience about co-selection and the inherent bias our eye may have for back and rib fat.

for grins, i attached a fake randomly assigned value plot. ignore the rump fat as they are just a multiple of rib fat.

just for discussion sake, which animal has more value, animal 6 with the most rib fat and good marbling, or animal 10 with the most marbling and least back fat. or another animal or some animal whose stats are not represented?

one could rank the animals based on subtraction of unit spread between the two or some percentage of the two or some other ranking with some weighting or normalization thrown in.

 

[Duncraggan]

they looked to be in better condition, but if you plotted IMF with rump and rib fat, what animals have lower rib and rump fat, but higher marbling? ask your consultant their experience about co-selection and the inherent bias our eye may have for back and rib fat.

for grins, i attached a fake randomly assigned value plot. ignore the rump fat as they are just a multiple of rib fat.

just for discussion sake, which animal has more value, animal 6 with the most rib fat and good marbling, or animal 10 with the most marbling and least back fat. or another animal or some animal whose stats are not represented?

one could rank the animals based on subtraction of unit spread between the two or some percentage of the two or some other ranking with some weighting or normalization thrown in.

Knabe, I failed to mention that in South Africa there is no premium for IMF, only external fat, to a point, but I like your reasoning!

My consultant does an EMA, skin thickness, rib- and rump-fat and then gives me an index of the animal's meat carrying capacity.  He also chucks out those that I miss for some or other reason, I am not an expert and a second pair of eyes always helps.

 

[librarian]

I have been told that animals grade better when they do not change environment. So it might be an incomplete comparison to look to the results of persons who feed out their own cattle, at home. One can produce superior beef with "average"genetics if there is minimal stress.
Somewhat related, was "handling" about measuring back fat?

 

[JTM]

I'm not sold on the idea of hard doing with less backfat but more marbling.

The fat is in a different spot and more difficult to measure.

I would not be afraid to have known marbling and one less bcs than less marbling and more backfat as long as total fat was same.

One has to be careful about fat as Holsteins look hard doing but simply have more marbling and more internal fat as external fat has been deselected off their back and selected for elsewhere including coming out their teats. I don't buy the argument. I think it's a flawed selection criteria.

Knabe, just to be clear. I didn't claim that my hard doing show cattle had no backfat but that they likely had good marbling. That is a trait of their breed identity being mostly Shorthorn. I was just making the case that IMF may not be in positive correlation with easy keeping cattle and that back fat may be in positive correlation with easy keeping maternal cattle. Nothing more than that.

 

[librarian]

I would be amazed if anything related this did not cut well.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Agreed. A@T has some of the best scanning cattle I've found in the breed. To bad Dover Ranch still isn't involved. That's a shame. A@T Optimus Prime is a bull I've been following closely.

 

[Eggbert]

Since 2009 we have marketed fat cattle directly on a grade-and-yield basis.  As a result, we have begun to generate some data that demonstrates the exceptional carcass traits of our cattle.  In that time, we have marketed a total of 123 head with 86% (106) of them grading choice or prime.

In 2012, we sold 32 head of fat cattle in one load to Tyson on the grid at the age of 14 to 15 months.  28 of the 32 were sired by our herd sire AF KF VG Step Ahead or a son of Step Ahead that we raised.

91% (29 out of 32) graded Choice or Prime.
  -5 Prime
  -24 Choice

100% were Yield Grade 1’s, 2’s, or 3’s
-62.5% were Yield Grade 1’s or 2’s 
9 Yield Grade 1’s (28%)
11 Yield Grade 2’s (34%)

2 graded the extremely rare combination of Prime and Yield Grade 1 (3 out of every 10,000 head achieve this) and two more graded Prime and Yield Grade 2 (less than 1% achieve this quality). 

As far as Sue's comments regarding not wanting heifer mates to Prime YG1 steers...I agree with the premise but in this case these two Prime YG1 animals were heifers.  They had light carcass weights - 693 and 679.  So their live weights were around 1,000.

The number of YG1 and YG2 is primarily due to the fact that corn was very high at the time and we hit the high point in the cattle market in early May.  Most of them could have been fed for another 30 to 45 days, but it didn't seem to make financial sense at the time.  We knew that several were light but we probably needed to fill the load and didn't want to have a few head left to feed.  Since we had a high percentage of choice and prime with the light live/carcass weights and low yield grades, it seems to indicate that the genetics are there to get an even better percentage of prime if fed longer. 

This year we and others will likely feed to higher weights and thus higher yield grades as well.

Picture of Step Ahead attached.  Nate - Step Ahead birth weights are consistently in the mid to low 80's and come easy.  A vast majority of our calves have been out of mature cows, but we have increasingly bred him to heifers with no problems.  In terms of maternal traits he has also been outstanding - easy fleshing females, great udder quality.  We have a few pictures of offspring at this link - http://www.highlandfarmsshorthorns.com/sires.html