Sue, First of all let me make this statement - If I am hired to work a sale for Ranch ABC, I will do my very best to market their animals for them irreguardless of what their program is. I worked a sale in Oklahoma last fall and the night before the sale I was asked which lots I was going to try to get sold, my answer was very simple - ALL OF THEM. I am not debating that there are some absolutely phenominal moderate framed cattle out there. I have seen them and helped market them. I am more directing this towards some cattle that I am seeing being marketed as moderate when in fact, they are just small framed cattle that in reality are harder doing than many of the big framed cattle from years ago. I personally don't consider a 3.25 frame animal with a 382# WW and a 763# YW a marketable breeding animal ( I will not name the breeders or the animals as that is not how I do business) but I saw this animal marketed as a moderate, calving ease sire (he did not sell). Larry Melhoff (5L) does a great job with his cattle and they absolutely work for him in his enviroment. I have absolutely nothing against the guys making their living off of the low imput/grass fed beef business. I have bought a little over $25,000 worth of cattle in the last year for a gentleman that does exactly that and has a phenominal freezer beef business working for him. I put in alot of miles in a years time as a buyer representative/sale manager. I see litterally thousands of Red Angus cattle sell in a years time and I will buy you whatever kind of cattle you are looking for, BUT!!!! I will not misrepresent an animal to you to make a commission. My reputation is worth far more to me than a couple of hundred bucks I might make off of a sale. I know the difference between an animal that is moderate and usable and an animal that simply will not grow.
I also own and opporate a registered Red Angus herd and after selling bulls to my local customers for 20+ years, I can tell you that the bulls that are a 5 frame score or less are the hardest ones to market to my bull buying customers. For my enviroment and my customer base the smaller framed cattle won't work, this is where my concerns are stemmed from. The RA gene pool is small enough that if the majority of the breed goes to frame score 4 cattle (strictly a hypothetical number) it will be hard for me and several others to find usable genetics to put into our herd. I don't think that this scenerio will take place in the real world for the fact that there are still alot of herds around that won't get caught up in the "trends of the time" and have customers much like mine. A year ago I talked with a cattle buyer from Myers Natural Beef, he expressed to me that his ideal "steer" weighed 1350# at 15 months old to fit their program. At that time he was having troulble finding enough RA sired steers that fit his needs to fill orders. Yes, the all natural qualifications are part of the limiting factor but he stated that finding "big enough" steers was a concern of his. Last year at the Iowa Beef Expo Red Angus sale there were a few 4 frame bulls in the offering, there was also an obvious lag oin the price that was being paid for those animals. I could have bought 3.8 to 4.8 frame bulls for $1,100 that day and I talked to two commercial bull buyers that went home with empty trailers because they felt that they couldn't afford the prices that were being paid ($3750 and up) for some of the larger more powerful bulls that they liked and were not interested in the smaller bulls at all. I have been "in the barn" long enough to know that a breed gets a reputation as being (fill in the blank) and all of the breed is classified as that. I kind of like the reputation we have had for a few years of just being good, functional cattle. RW
Hows the Walkerton bull doing? I havent got my 2012 brylor book yet. I didnt look up the number yet you provided. i will shortly.
