Jasmar said:
This is Jason Martin from Martindell Shorthorns. Im going to go on a little rant here so forgive me. We are one of the larger breeders of shorthorn cattle in the USA and are becoming increasingly frustated with getting hammered at the stockyards with our steers. This breed is a show breed and thats it. If you dont have a great show heifer what is anything else worth??? Nobody wants to buy a cow unless they can flush her to get a great show heifer. THERE ARE VERY FEW BREEDERS OF SHORTHORN CATTLE!!! There are however alot of banners chasers. Very few are trying to progress the breed they are just chasing a banner and big money.
We got tired of pulling calves out of cows, so we quit breeding for the great show heifers and are trying to breed cattle that will work for us and in the commercial industry. Well guess what, we have a great herd of cattle that are hard to sell in the shorthorn breed because they arent good enough to when a show. We have an outstanding group of red polled spring bulls that we hope we can sell for something. No they will not sire a national champion but they have the growth and performance that this breed needs. They have great epd's too for what that worth. They will be more accurate than some thats out there but that another story..lol
We have got to the point of saying to hell with shorthorns and buying some good black bulls and stop getting killed at the yards on our steers. We could sell half blood heifers alot easier than we can sell shorthorn heifers in the comercial industry. NOBODY WANTS A SHORTHORN IF THEY CANT WIN A SHOW!
The ASA has done nothing but talk about what needs to be done. Where are the avenues to help us as a shorthrn breeder? Where are the feedlots that will buy our steers for black hided prices? They talk about commercial acceptence and getting shorthorn bulls in the commercail sector, can you name one thing they have done to get that done besides saying we need to get bulls out there. We run 125 shorthorns cows and keep 15 to 20 bulls a year. We cut many bulls that angus breeders can keep and sell because we know we cant sell them. This is sad because they are better than alot of angus but if you cant sell them you can keep them. Sure you can spend alot of time to clip them up and present them really pretty to try to sell them but do the angus breeders that sell bulls have to do that??
We have sold our steers privately for the last few years to people who feed them out for beefs and they love them, but guess what they have quit feeding cattle out for different reasons so we have lost the markets WE had found on our own. We are getting tired of paying whole herd fees on 125 cows(146 on this years whole herd figure that up...lol) to get nothing but epd's that for the most part our crap.
Talk is cheap and thats about all we get from the ASA. Again we are one of the larger breeders of shorthorn cattle in the united states(top ten in registrations) and cant sell over 15 bulls a year if we are lucky and the ASA talks about commercil industry! Please what a joke. There are not enough shorthorn bulls in the usa to breed half the cows in any state you want to pick if everybody wanted a shorthorn bull.
I got alot more but tired of typing.
Signed
VERY FRUSTRATED SHORTHORN BREEDER
Jason, can I give you some advice, for what it is worth. You are welcome to give me negative karma if you disagree with specific points that I mention!
IMO, never send a post when you are VERY FRUSTRATED without having cooled off, read it again, used Spell Check and aired all your views in the post.
I am sure you have heard of the '10000 hours to proficiency' rule. I think there should be some sort of '20 years to proficiency' rule for cattle breeding as well. Let me state for the record that I am not there yet! IMO, unless you have sufficient cash to dispose of your 'show cattle' herd and buy a 'performance herd' you will take a good number of years to breed the former to the latter. You can't expect to go from success in the one to success in the other overnight.
All strategies need to be talked out first, the ASA seems to have a good plan but it needs the 'buy-in' of
all the members.
It will take commercially orientated breeders, like RedBulls and JTM in this thread, and others, that are hauling their bullocks to feed-outs, and are achieving good results, to change the perception that Shorthorns are not commercially orientated. Keeping ownership of you bullocks until they are killed seems to be the way to go, judging by the comment on this thread, provided they are commercially orientated that is!
I heard a comment once that one carcass data evaluation was more accurate than, I can't remember how many, but is was lots, of scan data readings. In a nutshell, EPD's without accuracy mean very little!
As a large breeder with goals and opinions on the breed going forward, you should have no trouble in getting yourself elected to the board. Having been in Shorthorn politics myself, not in North America, I have found that the biggest critics are often not prepared to put themselves forward for election to the board. They prefer to sit on the side and make a lot of noise without actually putting their shoulders to the wheel!
With the renewed enthusiasm your new CEO/Executive Secretary has brought to the ASA, and the depth and knowledge of your commercially orientated breeders on the board, you need to grasp this opportunity for pushing the breed to new heights with both hands, if this window of opportunity passes you by the next window will be many years away.
