? for the Shorthorn Experts.

Help Support Steer Planet:

aj

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
6,420
Location
western kansas
Back fat on a steer in a feedlot is waste. Backfat on a cow on a "sawdust and sand" nutrional diet is a source of survival. A cow can store up fat and save the energy for tough times. I think IMF is probably kinda corelated with the ability to back fat.....just a guess though. Thats why in a perfect world a easy keeping cow bred to a terminal sire would make sense......the terminal sire ......like a Charolais would und the extra back fat genetcis.
 

RyanChandler

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 6, 2011
Messages
3,457
Location
Pottsboro, TX
As long as the cow can provide enough milk for the calf to reach his growth potential then that's the ideal scenario.  Higher back fat cattle are generally poorer milkers.
 

sue

Well-known member
Joined
May 1, 2007
Messages
1,906
librarian said:
I would be amazed if anything related this did not cut well.
Posted earlier that Captain and his son Payday together graded 92% choice: Payday= 100% YG 3, HCW 819 lbs, BF .48, ave REA 12.18 . Captain had 1 YG 2, 5 YG 4's, BF .60 HCW 861 lbs. Each bull had one Select, YG 3.  More on feed and more to grade. Many of the daughters are replacements for Nathan. I would agree that Dover breeding is the route to go. A&T has Optimus Prime calves on feed now. Optimus Prime is out of a Rob Sneed bull that scanned very well for IMF ( Paternal brother to RS 034). By the way I took that photo of  Captain's dam 244MU - his daughters look the same.
 

knabe

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 7, 2007
Messages
13,639
Location
Hollister, CA
any advertising in the angus journal about this or any publications targeted at commercial cattlemen and cattle women?
 

r.n.reed

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
611
librarian said:
I have been told that animals grade better when they do not change environment. So it might be an incomplete comparison to look to the results of persons who feed out their own cattle, at home. One can produce superior beef with "average"genetics if there is minimal stress.
Somewhat related, was "handling" about measuring back fat?
It would be interesting to compare the data if someone like Eggbert had fed 1/2 his steers in a commercial feedlot.It would be important to send them to a yard familiar with feeding that type of cattle though to get a reliable comparison.
 

knabe

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 7, 2007
Messages
13,639
Location
Hollister, CA
Eggbert said:
In 2012, we sold 32 head of fat cattle in one load to Tyson on the grid at the age of 14 to 15 months.  28 of the 32 were sired by our herd sire AF KF VG Step Ahead or a son of Step Ahead that we raised.


with shorthorn epd's highly suspect, how has his numbers changed, especially the accuracy from the 1st calf to the last one?
 

librarian

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 26, 2013
Messages
1,629
Location
Knox County Nebraska
I have neighbors who have a commercial angus herd of around 200 cows.  They feed out their own steers and non-replacement heifers (on corn) and the animals go directly to Moyer and Taylor packers in Pennsylvania at around 14 months.They have over 20 years of carcass data and grade over 90% choice.
I help them a lot and know every cow they have that is part Shorthorn. There are about 20 and I know them by tag number.  We were involved in a DNA study a few years ago, testing for marbling, tenderness and feed efficiency, along with about 400 other animals from smaller farms, representing many breeds from Devon to Charolais.  My neighbors' cattle were the high scorers for marbling, primarily because of breeding to AI Angus sires strong on this trait.  The cows tested would have been the retained daughters of those sires.  I sorted that data to see who the top cows were for marbling, and then again for feed efficiency.  The tag numbers that rose to the top 10% for marbling were the Shorthorn cross tag numbers.  20 out of 200, and of those 18 were the Shorthorn crosses.
The feed efficiency sort looked basically opposite to the marbling sort, with those animals near the bottom.
The tenderness scores followed marbling much closer than they followed feed efficiency.
The Shorthorn crosses they have were sort of thin skinned, hard doing sorts that required more feed to stay in condition.  They bred back reliably, though, or they got culled.
The other top producer for marbling was a Charolais breeder who is about 80 years old.  He has consistently selected for docility for about 40 years. His cows are pretty fat.
My guess is that there is some genetic synergy with Shorthorn and Angus that boosts marbling. Things can be linked in so many different ways that it's hard to imagine the whole picture.
The docility approach I think is a more straightforward way to get IMF.
Even if an animal tests high for marbling, will it marble? As usual, it depends...

 

nate53

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 26, 2011
Messages
419
Location
North East, Missouri
knabe said:
Eggbert said:
In 2012, we sold 32 head of fat cattle in one load to Tyson on the grid at the age of 14 to 15 months.  28 of the 32 were sired by our herd sire AF KF VG Step Ahead or a son of Step Ahead that we raised.


with shorthorn epd's highly suspect, how has his numbers changed, especially the accuracy from the 1st calf to the last one?
Also, do you have kill data from these same cows from another sire or two?  It would be interesting to know if it was actually from the bull, cows, or maybe they are pretty much equal?  It's good data, especially for the age! (clapping)
 

nate53

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 26, 2011
Messages
419
Location
North East, Missouri
librarian said:
My guess is that there is some genetic synergy with Shorthorn and Angus that boosts marbling. Things can be linked in so many different ways that it's hard to imagine the whole picture.
The docility approach I think is a more straightforward way to get IMF.
Even if an animal tests high for marbling, will it marble? As usual, it depends...
I'm with you on everything but the docility.  For a couple years we only saved heifers out of cows that produced prime calves (they were some of the craziest, didn't stay around too long).

Jamie:  Did you get the data?
 

Eggbert

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 1, 2010
Messages
65
Nate - we only have five years of data - when we started finishing our cattle and selling them direct to packer.

Our choice/prime average for that time period is 86%.  The 2012 data for primarily Step Ahead progeny was 91% - so a slight improvement but a smaller sample size.


nate53 said:
knabe said:
Eggbert said:
In 2012, we sold 32 head of fat cattle in one load to Tyson on the grid at the age of 14 to 15 months.  28 of the 32 were sired by our herd sire AF KF VG Step Ahead or a son of Step Ahead that we raised.


with shorthorn epd's highly suspect, how has his numbers changed, especially the accuracy from the 1st calf to the last one?
Also, do you have kill data from these same cows from another sire or two?  It would be interesting to know if it was actually from the bull, cows, or maybe they are pretty much equal?  It's good data, especially for the age! (clapping)
 

jaimiediamond

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 23, 2010
Messages
1,019
Location
Okotoks
nate53 said:
Jamie:  Did you get the data?

I didn't make it to the ranch we had a large snow storm and more cows calving than there was space in the barn on the day I was planning on picking it up.  I will be heading there on Thursday to help semen test so I will have the data to post Thursday night. 
 
Top