How Fat is too Fat

[OH Breeder]

Angus111 I am assuming you are speaking tongue in cheek.... ;D

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

imo and this is a old discussion, shows are beauty contest not a production show.in shows cattle dont need to be functional apparently.the heifer with the biggest hip,cleanest front and most volume is going to win,can they travel?alot that win cant.freemartins i would guess have won.judge cant see fertility and i dont think it matters sometimes if they could..rusty swks

There are females that are big volumed, square hipped and clean fronted with out being hog fat. I will agree with you that a lot of judges apperently cannot tell if an animal is sound or not and cannot travel. It really torques me off to see a cripple place above cattle that are sound in their movement and good on their feet and legs just because they have lived in a feed pan. I'm kind of a structure freak but lets turn them out in the big grass and see who looks the best in three months. The fertility issue is a whole other can of worms. Our breed requires a preg. status stated on the health papers on any breeding age female to be eligable to show, but rules are only as good as the people that enforce them, and likje anything else there are people who will figure out a way to get around them.

 

[Gypsy]

Just for grins check out this site for Champion animals.  I don't believe that anyone will think that the heifer in these photos has too much condition.  :

http://www.corrientecattle.org/nov_16_test.htm

 

[OH Breeder]

OH MY, they look like Humane animal cases...wow the poor things. They need to come to Ohio and REd and I would put some weight on them in no time.

 

[DL]

Just for grins check out this site for Champion animals.  I don't believe that anyone will think that the heifer in these photos has too much condition.  :

http://www.corrientecattle.org/nov_16_test.htm

Actually I think the cow is quite pretty - and that is with no make up, no dye, no hair care (imagine the time you save!!) - Gypsy when is your family going to start showing them?

 

[Jill]

I would have a really hard time going to the pasture and having to look at those everyday, just personal preference I guess. 
I have thought alot on the too fat issue and while I agree to a certain extent, I also think that most of what they call correctly conditioned animals are just plain hard doing.  We feed heavy and that is just part of showing, and have not ever had a fertility issues from it, however, we have had a number of hard doing cattle that just plain will not function as cows.  Our cattle do have to function as cows and ultimately that is where they end up, but when I purchase a heifer it is for the show ring and if she isn't competitive there, I might as well have bought a market priced animal, we are there to win and I don't apologize for it.  While I think they need to be slimmed down some, I think somewhere in there there needs to be a happy medium, I'll take the easy fleshing over the hard doing any day of the week.

 

[Gypsy]

Just for grins check out this site for Champion animals.  I don't believe that anyone will think that the heifer in these photos has too much condition.  :

http://www.corrientecattle.org/nov_16_test.htm

Actually I think the cow is quite pretty - and that is with no make up, no dye, no hair care (imagine the time you save!!) - Gypsy when is your family going to start showing them?

(lol) I am pretty sure that everybody out there can figure out why there are NO humans in these photos! ;D  Corrientes are not a "family" project here.  I make that very clear.  ICK!  I do like the Au natural look, just not the "Twiggy" look.  (Dating myself there - look her up farmboy.) 

On the "how fat is too fat" question, I'm going to express my opinion here.  When we buy a bull (Denver for example) I absolutely will not buy a bull that is too fat.  Too fat even as a yearling has lifelong consequences.  It is proven to have LIFELONG detrimental effects to fertility.  LIFELONG.  When they slim down they will look and work better but they will NOT regain the lost fertility.  It is GONE.  When I raise bulls to sell  I absolutely will not let them get too fat.  They would probably sell better, sadly, lots of buyers  cannot tell the difference between natural thickness and muscle and fat but I want a happy repeat buyer down the road.  Same way with heifers, the few that we have shown, we have kept  healthy and not butterball fat and we probably at times gave up a higher placing but that (for US) was okay, the show was not the goal, and we know that getting heifers too fat has LIFELONG fertility and milking consequences.  LIFELONG.  Our end goal was not the show, we had two other goals: 1. a pleasant learning experience for the kids and 2.  have a productive female in the herd.  If your goals are different, and of course lots are, you would do things different, but I liked our goals and we were successful with them.

On that note we once had a judge tell my daughter "that there was no way her heifer could beat" so and so's (fatter) heifer.  And at that show, under that judge she couldn't.  But she already had beat her.  Twice.  One man's (or woman's) opinion on that day.  Gotta remember that.  And have some fun.  ;D

 

[DLD]

...  Our cattle do have to function as cows and ultimately that is where they end up, but when I purchase a heifer it is for the show ring and if she isn't competitive there, I might as well have bought a market priced animal, we are there to win and I don't apologize for it.  While I think they need to be slimmed down some, I think somewhere in there there needs to be a happy medium, I'll take the easy fleshing over the hard doing any day of the week.

Lots of good thoughts in this thread, but when it comes down to it, I'm with Jill on this one. We're not what I'd call real serious about showing heifers at this point - mostly because I just like showing steers better. Most of the heifers we show are ones that we've raised, and we tend to show them 'til they're around 12 - 15 months old, then turn 'em out and breed 'em and start over with a new set. And even the younger one's, I don't let get very fat. I shot myself in the foot on this one though, as we bought a futurity heifer at Tulsa last fall, and she shows back this fall. She's out on grass with the rest of the heifers her age and the cleanup bull right now, though...

Why do judges pick 'em too fat? (or any number of things, like structural unsoundness...) Just my opinion, but I think there are way too many people judging shows that have never had to make a living raising cattle. Yeah, I know, most have been "in the business" their whole lives, but there's alot of difference in the viewpoints of a college professor/judging team coach and someone who actually raises cattle (and not just show cattle) for a living. They all place their emphasis on traits that are important to them, it just happens that sometimes those traits are a little at odds with one another...

David

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

DLD - excellent point about judges. My oldest daughter just completed her college judgeing career at Black Hawk East. When she would come home I would have go through our "Show Prospects/Sale heifers" pen and pick the ones she thought was the best. We never or at least seldom agreed on which heifers were best. She could spout a string of reasons why one heifer was better than another and we would debate why each of us liked our respective heifers better than the other, but it basically boiled down to the fact that she was coached to pick the ones that looked like steers. There is a difference between what a simple cattleman trying to scratch out a living in the business likes and what the college coaches teach their students to like. I still like my "girls" to look like girls and apparently so do the buyers as the heifers I liked consistantly out sold the ones that she picked at auction.