Stealing Justintime's idea....Is there such a thing...

[Show Dad]

Show steers are to feedlot cattle as Nascar stock cars are to my family car.

Yeah, show animals just go in circles and commercial cattle go from home to the grocery store!

 

[justme]

I'll be the first to admit I like to stay moderate.  I don't chase trends.  I figure if I stay middle of the road I'm safe.  I will admit I like a bull and cow with some bone to her.  If they are going to be deep bodied and carry thickness over ther e top and down there rump, I want some bone underneath them.  Just my preference.

We have to remember, a show is just that.  A place to spotlight the best.  In a beauty pagent do we send a chubby girl? no...I'd never make it in a bathsuit competition but my husband still wouldn't throw me away.  We show are best and if they are a little "ugly" but structurally correct and do there job they stay here and do the job.

 

[Show Dad]

Gidget........Uh..........well..........uh..........never mind (think I'm better off leaving that one alone.  )
<alien>

 

[TJ]

I will always remember a visit to a herd in Illinois a few years ago. I delivered a bull to a breeder who had a set of small to moderate framed cows.They were extremely deep and it was very muddy after several weeks of rain. I remember these cows with their udders literally dragging in the mud and I wondered how their calves could ever nurse in those conditions. Maybe it is just because I have lived in a drier climate, but this really bothered me.

I'm hearing all this, but it just doesn't get any wetter or muddier than it does here!   With all of our lakes, river, ponds, have more total shore line than Florida.  The 2 largest rivers & 2 largest man made lakes in the US are all within 90 miles of me, so it's obvious that we get lots of rain.  Right in the middle of calving season last year (mid March) it rained so much, I had almost 3 feet of water in my basement & it was as muddy as it will every be anywhere.  Yet, I had small, deep body cows nursing calves less than 2-3 weeks old & some calving & I didn't have a problem.  Maybe I'm not having a problem because my cows calve out on pasture where they are supposed to... and we have rocked main gathering areas, with filter fabric underneath.... but, on the other hand, I'm often overstocked in the late fall/winter/early spring & usually hurting for room, so my conditions aren't perfect by any means.  Ideally, I'd calve everything on stockpiled grass, but I currently have too many head & not enough pasture to do that.  However, despite not having perfect pasture conditions, despite serious flooding (over a foot of rain), & despite so much soft mud, I didn't have a problem last year or any of the previous years.  And if it's that muddy, the last thing I'd want on my pastures is a bunch of heavy cows with bigger hooves, going in deeper & wider with ever single step!  I think that the bigger issue here is udder attachment & teat size.  I haven't seen a good uddered cow yet, that a calf could nurse, even after over a foot of rain, no matter how deep sided they are.  

Maybe I'm way off base.  I will agree that I guess it could be possible to get a cow too deep sided, I just think we have a ways to go before that happens.  I haven't seen a show steer that was too deep sided & that is what we were originally discussing.  What you mention with the mud, sounds more like an issue with management & with udder selection than it does a problem with deep sided cows.  Like I said, it just doesn't get muddier than it does here with all of our rain, snow, freezes & thaws.  If it gets that muddy, you are probably going to have problems no matter what.  
I guess I've just seen a lot more big cows scale 5 foot tall fences than I have seen little, deep cows have problems in mud.  Not all big cows jump fences & not all little cows have mud problems.    

   

 

[TJ]

If we took two years off of checking, pulling and c-sections, let mother nature take its coarse, mother-nature would eliminate these problems for us!  Everyone just go on vacation this spring. (lol)

That is exactly my theory.  I give my dad a hard time & tell him that on all the females that he didn't breed to a Lowline, he'd better not call me to pull a calf...  But, he knows that I'm a softy & while I talk a good talk, I'm really not that callus... if he had a problem, I'd be the one up to my shoulder inside that female (if necessary) & I'd be doing my best to get that calf out.  But, afterwards...     

 

[simtal]

I always wondered why these show steers have to have so much bone when nobody eats bone. A steer is supposed to be something you eat.

you don't eat guts either (depth)

 

[aj]

Waste on a carcass is pretty close to fleshing ability on a cow. There has to be a medium. There are different enviroments also. You have a Eastern Colorado enviroment..semi arid. And then you have an enviroment where it rains once in a while. The third enviroment is the showring et barn enviroment. Different cattle for different enviroments. Different breeds for different enviroments and purposes. How worthless is a third generation et bovine that has not under went any natural selection pressure(udder,milk, stayability,fleshing ability)? We might as well raise cattle in an enviromentally controlled dome on mars as a showring setting.

 

[TJ]

I always wondered why these show steers have to have so much bone when nobody eats bone. A steer is supposed to be something you eat.

you don't eat guts either (depth)

Yeah, but I've seen deep sided steers dress out at a high percentage.  Big boned calves typically don't.

 

[aj]

And by the way I like chubby girls. And in beauty pagents I like to see evenly spaced nipples.

 

[yuppiecowboy]

I would surmise that everyone who frequents this board is guilty to some degree of aspiring phenotype in their cattle that is counterproductive to true optimimum beef production. I am the first sinner in line and i assure i cast no stones for my house is pure glass.

I think the best bull I ever knew of, certainly the best I ever had, was a Leachman Rite Time son I picked up to clean up heifers. When heifers farted close to 280 days of pregnancy they shot em across the lot, the calves ricocheted off the wall, grabbed a tit, and didnt let go till they weighed 650 and went to the sale barn at 6 months old. The guys that fed them beat down my door to buy them off the farm. Only problem was I didnt have any more because the calves were so ugly they made my teeth hurt and I shipped him.

I have a few calves on the ground. So do most of you all. You know why? Cuz were idiots. If we were into cattle for cattle's sake we would calve in may. I have 20 head bred to Heatwave (clone) Why? cuz I am an idiot. So is everyone that uses him. I do it cuz I like how they look and I can sell them for alot of money. The people who buy my heatwaves are dumb. Why in the name of Reindeer Dippin is a baby moo cow worth a thousand bucks? (or multiples thereof) It isnt.  The ones I raise that bring the most are the ones that have the most hair, bone, and look. Also they tend to be lousy doers so they can show longer. How you like your "look" cooked?

Fact is this isnt called "Practical Beef Production Planet" its steer planet. The difference between us and the WebMD Herpes board is we spend piles of money in a pursuit we enjoy even if it makes zero common sense or appeals to anyone but our own ilk while they stock up on Valtrex.

No offense to the southern crowd, but if all I had available were Gerts I would work harder at my day job and sell hay to the moron horse idjits who are dumber than we are.

Its awful hard to get up at 5 am to check heifers in below zero degree weather, I flat wouldnt do it if I didnt like to look at em.

 

[justintime]

We may not eat structural soundness but it is one of the corner posts that this industry is based on... and it has to be.  You may not think it is of any issue to you, but it is something that affects most everything you do with your cattle. We have had lots of talk on this site about calving and calving issues. Structural soundness a  big part of ease of calving. Structural soundness is one of the most important factors affecting longevity. Structural soundness is important in all segments of the industry... it is just more important in some parts than it is in others.

We have people on this board who live in various parts of the country and are in the beef business in different degrees. To some, this is just a hobby.. to raise a few calves for the kids to show. This is a very important part of the industry and you are a vital part of the industry. I applaud people who do this and for realizing how this involvement helps their families. We have others who have a few cows to supplement their day jobs. These people are also extremely important, and this group is becoming a bigger part of the beef industry every year. We also have people who raise cattle as their sole income for their families.This is p  This is part of the reason we all look at the cattle we raise differently.

The geographic location we live in also has a role in how we make our priorities . I am sure that you would want some different traits in a herd bull if you lived in some parts of Western USA than you might if you were in cental Iowa. In the mid 90s we took 52 bulls to a range bull sale in Sturgis SD. We had bulls from several breeds as we took some bulls from different breeders to fill the pot we were taking. There were 1300 bulls in this sale, and there was no fitting allowed. You were not even allowed to brush the straw off them. The ranchers from Wyoming, Colorado Utah and Nevada were there in droves, and it was a huge lesson for me to watch how these guys selected their bulls. Most of them would walk into the bull pen and take a look, then they would ask if we could turn the bulls into the alley. They would follow the bulls down the alley and watch how they walked. I remember an Angus friend of mine, sent 7 black bulls with me. He had one bull that had lots of performance and he was a bull that could have had a good show career in the day. He had a yearling weight of 1300 lb and he had a BW of 100 lb. He also sent a small framed bull with a yearling weight of under 900 lb and he had a 70 lb BW. To me, this bull was almost an embarrassment to have in the pen. I was given a big lesson when the sale came as the little bull sold for $4850  and the bigger bull that I thought was pretty good struggled to get the $1200 upset price. To these guys structural soundness was a close second to birth weight as their most important selection traits. I remember one bull buyer telling me that during calving time, they flew over the heifer pasture twice a week during calving and the main cow herd once a week. He said that if it looked like there were too many dead animals, they then went out by horseback to check. A live calf was the most important trait to them , and I think realized why our bulls sold in a very different order than they would in many other places.

This is the main reason that we sometimes agree to disagree on some of the topics on here.

 

[oakbar]

As I said in another thread--The pendulum of what's popular in the show ring may swing from one extreme to another, but it  must always swing back through reproductivity and profitabililty.  This to me, means moderation and balance of all traits.  The extremes are OK for a small percentage of breeding animals but the rank and file of the industry will be, and should be, grouped to the middle.  With packers wanting more uniformity in carcass size, composition, etc. we will, necessarily, tend to moderate many of the traits in our commercial cattle.  I agree that the show ring is not always indicative of what's best for the commercial industry, but I would hope in the future to move more toward that view than towards a simple beauty pageant for cows!!  Some people say that in steers we are just breeding for a terminal product.  This is true, but steers will end up hanging on a rail sooner or later and we want them to be the kind the packer wants--not a carcass he will automatically discount because its a "show steer"!  If its just going to be a beauty pageant we could just as well be showing cats or something else that will never end up on our dinner tables--at least in this part of the world.  JMHO

 

[TJ]

I would surmise that everyone who frequents this board is guilty to some degree of aspiring phenotype in their cattle that is counterproductive to true optimimum beef production. I am the first sinner in line and i assure i cast no stones for my house is pure glass.

I think the best bull I ever knew of, certainly the best I ever had, was a Leachman Rite Time son I picked up to clean up heifers. When heifers farted close to 280 days of pregnancy they shot em across the lot, the calves ricocheted off the wall, grabbed a tit, and didnt let go till they weighed 650 and went to the sale barn at 6 months old. The guys that fed them beat down my door to buy them off the farm. Only problem was I didnt have any more because the calves were so ugly they made my teeth hurt and I shipped him.

I have a few calves on the ground. So do most of you all. You know why? Cuz were idiots. If we were into cattle for cattle's sake we would calve in may. I have 20 head bred to Heatwave (clone) Why? cuz I am an idiot. So is everyone that uses him. I do it cuz I like how they look and I can sell them for alot of money. The people who buy my heatwaves are dumb. Why in the name of Reindeer Dippin is a baby moo cow worth a thousand bucks? (or multiples thereof) It isnt.  The ones I raise that bring the most are the ones that have the most hair, bone, and look. Also they tend to be lousy doers so they can show longer. How you like your "look" cooked?

Fact is this isnt called "Practical Beef Production Planet" its steer planet. The difference between us and the WebMD Herpes board is we spend piles of money in a pursuit we enjoy even if it makes zero common sense or appeals to anyone but our own ilk while they stock up on Valtrex.

No offense to the southern crowd, but if all I had available were Gerts I would work harder at my day job and sell hay to the moron horse idjits who are dumber than we are.

Its awful hard to get up at 5 am to check heifers in below zero degree weather, I flat wouldnt do it if I didnt like to look at em.

A whole lot of truth in that post.  There is nothing wrong at all with doing something that you enjoy.  "Enjoyment", is a big reason why I raise cattle too.  Probably it's a big reason why we all do it.  Probably why we all choose to raise what we raise.  Probably why we have so many different breeds & so many different sizes.   

Great post!  And I mean that... GREAT POST!

 

[Show Dad]

I thought long and hard about responding seriously to this post (yes, I do think seriously from time to time), and probably should just keep my trap shut. But........

Not to disagree with TJ or YC, there just happens to be more than "show steer (cattle)" jocks and breeders on this site. (It's not Show Steer Planet) And that's what I like about this board. I mean is Road Warrior someone chasing the latest show ring trend?  There are those of us who try to show cattle that are productive to beef production. It's our passion. Do we do dumb things? You bet. Like, line breeding to a great bull, but not calling cows that gave birth to puddles of genetic ooze, but instead we sold them to our "dumb" neighbors.


YC your post should tug at most of our hearts. TJ was right it's a great post.

Just My Honest Dumb Opinion  <alien>

 

[aj]

How do you get to the herpes web deal? The showring has never got things right. Not in the 60's. Not in the 80's. And not now. I hate the wda in the showring. It leads to people lying about birth dates and it perpetuating a hard growing breed whose cows mature at 1800#. A maternal breed should not put alot of stock in the wda of a two year old bull. I know guys who won't use a bull of a bwt over 85#. There isn't a show bull with a weight less than 85#. That is fine but lets call a spade a spade. How can we explain to the commercial people what kind of cattle they should have if we can't get bulls to them in an acceptable bwt. The Shorthorn breed is a show breed for the most part. It is a zoo breed for the most part. If we could swing our resources back to some 85# bwt cattle I wonder what the breed could accomplish in the beef industry. But we won't cause as breeders we still believe in the 100# bwt calves and the 1800# cow and the wda measurement. This is a show site and thats ok but lets call a spade a spade.jmo

 

[shortyjock89]

I reckon as long as what you're doin makes you money, you don't need anyone else tellin you how to raise your cattle.  I know RW raises some awful good Red Angus cows that would probably be WAY too big for what I want to do, and I know that TJ's Fullblood Lowline cows are too small for my place. But they probably both make more money per COW than most people.  

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

I thought long and hard about responding seriously to this post (yes, I do think seriously from time to time), and probably should just keep my trap shut. But........

Not to disagree with TJ or YC, there just happens to be more than "show steer (cattle)" jocks and breeders on this site. (It's not Show Steer Planet) And that's what I like about this board. I mean is Road Warrior someone chasing the latest show ring trend?  There are those of us who try to show cattle that are productive to beef production. It's our passion. Do we do dumb things? You bet. Like, line breeding to a great bull, but not calling cows that gave birth to puddles of genetic ooze, but instead we sold them to our "dumb" neighbors.


YC your post should tug at most of our hearts. TJ was right it's a great post.

Just My Honest Dumb Opinion  <alien>

SD - I'm going to take that as a compliment - I think ;-) RW

 

[aj]

I'd agree. I think an epd for dollars generated per flush might be in order.

 

[Show Dad]

I thought long and hard about responding seriously to this post (yes, I do think seriously from time to time), and probably should just keep my trap shut. But........

Not to disagree with TJ or YC, there just happens to be more than "show steer (cattle)" jocks and breeders on this site. (It's not Show Steer Planet) And that's what I like about this board. I mean is Road Warrior someone chasing the latest show ring trend?  There are those of us who try to show cattle that are productive to beef production. It's our passion. Do we do dumb things? You bet. Like, line breeding to a great bull, but not calling cows that gave birth to puddles of genetic ooze, but instead we sold them to our "dumb" neighbors.


YC your post should tug at most of our hearts. TJ was right it's a great post.

Just My Honest Dumb Opinion  <alien>

SD - I'm going to take that as a compliment - I think ;-) RW

RW it was said with the utmost admiration. I think you and many others here, know what you are aiming for with your cattle and  you place the show ring in it's proper perspective within your operation.
<alien>

 

[LN]

I reckon as long as what you're doin makes you money, you don't need anyone else tellin you how to raise your cattle.  I know RW raises some awful good Red Angus cows that would probably be WAY too big for what I want to do, and I know that TJ's Fullblood Lowline cows are too small for my place. But they probably both make more money per COW than most people.  

I totally agree. Whatever works for you and makes you happy, and maybe some money.