Hip height on cattle

[mainecattlemother]

I would like to hear everyone's opinion about hip height in cattle. For the last two to three years any of the heifers we bought for our kids to show did not have enough hip height. The last heifer we purchased three years ago with hip height was a Heatseeker x Star Power. We like Simmi influenced cattle. This year we purchased a Monopoly x Black Glitter. She is considerably shorter in her hip height. A couple years ago we had a Monopoly x Cowboy Cut with same issue and I know the dam is not that short. Are we burning the calves out on feed or is it strictly genetics?

 

[RyanChandler]

strictly genetic. 

When you say the heifers "didn't have enough" hip height - to whom didn't they have enough for? To me, if they can cover their tracks, they have enough leg. 

And just for conversation purposes, when referring to height or 'how tall' - hip height is always the implicit measurement. 

 

[mainecattlemother]

When you have them in a class with the same age calves and they stand a good four inches higher on hip I think there is something wrong. We have not had problems with covering tracks for the most part but we are always told that we are overpowered even though we are almost always just as think. I don't like a calf with too much hip height if I am using the right term but I like them standing a little taller.

 

[obie105]

It sounds like they are a frame score or 2 smaller which is genetic for the most part. After seeing some bred heifers of a friends a few weeks ago out of clubby bulls I know why the guys on here are always stressing using maternal bred bulls to make mamas not clubby bulls. The group of clubby bred ones were all at least a frame score smaller than his sim/angus or Maine/angus heifers.

 

[AAOK]

I'm sick and tired of all these frame 4-5 Market Heifers showing as Breeding stock!  It's about time we get back to breeding for those feminine 7 frame heifers which we don't have to worry about calving ease bulls. That's my two cents!

 

[RyanChandler]

^ surely you're being sarcastic?

 

[knabe]

say you have 200 heifers similarly bred and sorted into two groups, one with fancy care and show feed, the other, raised on a commercial operation.


what will be the average hip height of each group?

 

[GoWyo]

say you have 200 heifers similarly bred and sorted into two groups, one with fancy care and show feed, the other, raised on a commercial operation.


what will be the average hip height of each group?

Have that situation now, though not 200 head, but the frame size on both groups are about the same.  The level of fleshing and fat and hair puts about 20-25% more weight on the pampered group.

 

[RyanChandler]

When you have them in a class with the same age calves and they stand a good four inches higher on hip I think there is something wrong. We have not had problems with covering tracks for the most part but we are always told that we are overpowered even though we are almost always just as think. I don't like a calf with too much hip height if I am using the right term but I like them standing a little taller.

If your calf is the same weight but four inches shorter than those she's competing against, their will be no question which calf is more powerful.  (YOURS) 

 

[knabe]

Except when the birth date is faked or one has been fed a fatter diet.

Those pone fat females sure are powerful looking.

Something everyone makes breeding/ buying decisions on, eespecially the commercial guy.

I guess it would be interesting to have an order buyer or cull cow buyer judge a breeding class and judge them as fats as they should be which they do everyday at the show called the sale yard where reality sets in. Every show person should go to the auction several times.

 

[RyanChandler]

Except when the birth date is faked or one has been fed a fatter diet.

Those pone fat females sure are powerful looking.

Something everyone makes breeding/ buying decisions on, eespecially the commercial guy.

I guess it would be interesting to have an order buyer or cull cow buyer judge a breeding class and judge them as fats as they should be which they do everyday at the show called the sale yard where reality sets in. Every show person should go to the auction several times.

No one said pone fat females.    A 1400lb frame 4 cow w/ a bcs of 5 is more powerful than a 1400lb frame 7 cow w/ a bcs of 5. 

Why do you think breeding females should be judged as fats?

 

[chambero]

It's just genetics.  Frankly, I consider "burning one out on feed" to be a myth as far as restricting growth.  The more you feed one the more they grow.  A few will eat more feed than they really need and then it just goes through them.  If there is any truth to "getting them fat so they won't grow" as is commonly talked about on feeding steers, it doesn't make more than a 1/4 to 1/2" difference at best.

I really like Monopoly-sired calves, but some of them just aren't big enough - and frankly it's pretty random.  I had a very nice Char-X cow with a high 5 frame score that had a Monopoly heifer a few years ago.  She turned into a beautiful cow except for size - a frame 3.5 cow.  I kept her purely for show steer production, but she isn't big enough for any other purpose. If you are in it long enough, you learn to identify the babies that have enough growth to them.

 

[knabe]

Why do you think breeding females should be judged as fats?

because if they were being fed for slaughter, they would be finished.

 

[Tallcool1]

It's just genetics.  Frankly, I consider "burning one out on feed" to be a myth as far as restricting growth.  The more you feed one the more they grow.  A few will eat more feed than they really need and then it just goes through them.  If there is any truth to "getting them fat so they won't grow" as is commonly talked about on feeding steers, it doesn't make more than a 1/4 to 1/2" difference at best.

It is ironic that my father and I were just having this same conversation a couple nights ago.  He agreed with chambero 100%.

What I DO believe to be true is that you don't want to get behind on one that is going to be tall.  If you let that steer just "grow" his way to 53" tall, it is going to be REALLY hard to catch up with him.

 

[AAOK]

^ surely you're being sarcastic?

I am dead serious. So many of these "breeding heifers" today are just puds with lots hair!
Thus, so much worry about breeding, specifically searching for calving ease bulls. What a joke!  Smaller, lighter heifer calves grow out to be progressively harder calving.

That should stir up the bee hive.

 

[Limiman12]

Yes and no......  On one side yes if they STAY small they will have less pelvic area.  But on the flip side they themselves carry half of the genetics that will control how big their calves will be......  We just calves a cow last night that I had bought at the sale barn last spring before calving.  Last year I had planned on just getting the calf and selling them both, but two things happened.....  She had a 52 pound heifer calf that weaned as big or bigger then any of our other calves.  I also tracked down the guy that had sold her, through the sale barn, turned out it was a friend of my dads....  She is a Bismark daughter, they sold her only because he likes 1600 pound cows and she was only about 1200 as a second calver.......    We AIed her back to a bull that typically throws calves in the mid eighties........  She calves lt night, had about a sixty pound heifer calf, though we haven't got her on the scales yet.    Best 1135 dollars I have spent.

The problem with club calf breeding on heifers is that growth is not always thought of when picking bulls.  "She is big enough to balance him out". Goes through the minds of a lot of people, and unfortunately you are just as likely to get daddy's frame and mommies muscle as the other way around.......  Then when it comes time to keep heifers back you look and go, "she is outta (insert popular clubbie bull her) so she could maybe through some bigtime show calves".  I have made that mistake before as well......  I think I am getting past it though, we just sent two heifers to the sale barn that we kept waiting on to look like what they came out of......  But picking purebred bulls with EPDs you can look for the low birthweight high growth bulls to get the calving ease and still have heifers with 6+ frame scores.


So yeah, low birthweight with no growth leads to trouble because of no frame size, not her low birthweight,  But I would also say selecting based on single traits is NEVER a good thing......

 

[DLD]

It's been awhile, but we used to pelvic measure all of our heifers before we bred them.  We quit because after 10 years of measuring every heifer we bred, we never culled one on pelvic size.  But we did enough of them to make some observations, the primary one being that bigger heifers didn't always have bigger pelvic size.  Genetics had more to do with it than the size or phenotype of the heifer herself, and most of the time the stouter looking club calf sired heifers would measure smaller than the more feminine looking Maine, Simmy or Angus sired ones.  Among those with similar genetics, weighing the same and in the same condition, frame score has very little effect on pelvic size.  The size and type of cow everyone needs should be based on their own conditions and expectations, not on anyone else's blanket ideals.

Frame size is a very subjective thing for everyone, including judges - though I realize it's always harder to get around those bigger framed heifers in class.  I agree with Robert, I don't think overfeeding cattle inhibits their growth - I think genetics is what's catching up with you.
Even with the Simmental genetics (and they're not all as big as they used to be either), Monopoly is usually a downsizer, as are most other club calf bulls these days.  We chased the biggest butt and biggest bone and biggest belly we could get in a 1300# package too long - that package has to come on a not very big frame.