BEEF CATTLE BREEDING: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Roy T. Berg, Professor Emeritus U

http://gallowayworld.org/1997_files/1997%20-%20Beef%20Cattle%20Breeding%20-%20Past,%20Present%20%26%20Future.pdf
We all know this, but Shorthorns, found at the root of so many composites and synthetics, deserve this kind of selection direction emphasis.
...."For these reasons, I believe that future selection programs will be designed to produce an optimum cow, adapted to and productive under the conditions imposed by the ranch environment. The final criterion will be profitability which will also control how much intervention in terms of feed, health care, environmental control and associated investment in machinery, buildings and other facilities that could be justified. Most of the performance testing programs promoted and used over the past 40 years have encompassed selection criteria which lead to maximizing of particular performance traits.
My conclusions after 40 years of research is that maximum must give way to optimum - optimum cow size, optimum milk production, optimum birth weights - the optimum finally being determined by net economic return. The optimum would differ under different soil / climatic zones and could well differ from ranch to ranch. Performance testing programs in the future will be designed to aim for a combination of traits that are predicted to produce the most profit for the enterprise. Simulation models will be used to predict the best combination of traits, management alternatives, input costs and returns to produce the greatest profits.
Whatever hopes breeders might have for their breed in commercial production of the future, their breed will have to fit into profitable crossbreeding programs.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the Angus Association has convinced the US cattlemen that "They're worth more if they're black."  Doesn't matter how efficient the cow is, doesn't matter how heavy the calves are, nothing really matters unless they're black.  Try talking somebody who thinks their black calves will bring $2.50/pound compared to $2.00/pound for colored calves into using a non-black bull.  It's not right and I know there are so many, many other considerations, but in many neighborhoods, lots of cattlemen are blinded by color.

Retained ownership

Roy Berg was one of my professors and he had a profound effect n my thinking on cattle breeding and the cattle business in general.  He has made pioneering contributions to beef breeding and bovine development ( carcass traits).  Back in the 1950's he started the synthetic (composite) cattle breeding experiments at the Kinsella ranch that demonstrated that a selection program based on crossbreds (heterozygous)  maintained their hybrid vigor over generations as long at the U of A heterozygousity was maintained. In 1964 he co authored a book called 'New Concepts in cattle Growth"  that basically demolished the idea that visual appraisal can be used to accurately describe cattle body composition.
All the cattle at Kinsella are in a commercial ranch environment with native grass.  No fancy feeding going here.  The beef synthetic is Angus-Charolais-Galloway.  The Dairy Synthetic beef line ( beef cattle) was Angus Holstein Brown Swiss.
He was raised n Angus man and that is why all the synthetic lines have Angus in them.  In his day we was one of the best showring judges around and could line them up with the best of them.  His work changed his opinion greatly on the value of the showring  over his career.

who has the beefiest brown swiss?

knabe said:

who has the beefiest brown swiss?

Click to expand...

Braunvieh is the beef end of Brown Swiss. Commonly with A2A2 milk. Personally, I prefer Aubrac.