leanbeef said:
Somebody hit the nail on the head when he/she mentioned identity. In 1994, when the cattle market crashed, our identity had been tainted with a lot of characteristics that were negatively associated with commercial beef production...big frame size, hard doing, late maturing, big birth weights & calving problems. All those things were associated with traditionally colored Simmental cattle. The only way to avoid the discounts was to change all the things that were identifiable and associated with those problem cattle.
I was at a Focus 2000 seminar in the late 1990s, and we heard a LOT of people explain why Simmental cattle did NOT work in their operations, whether they were cow/calf guys, order buyers, or feedlot managers. It was tough to hear, but it all needed to be said. I don't think anybody at the time was concerned with getting CAB premiums...we just wanted to stop getting discounts! After we stopped the bleeding, we changed the breed. Breeders didn't just make the cattle black, but I think we have addressed all the measures the cattle were being criticized for. Birth weights went down, calving ease improved, cow size & feeder steer size got smaller, efficiency & profitability improved at every level in the chain. And now that we have a viable product again, why wouldn't we want to brand it and separate ourselves from all the generic black cattle out there?
I picked my first heifer based on the fact that she was red & white spotted. I was 8 years old. I still happen to like colored cattle if they're good...I don't think it matters what color they are if they're good. And I don't care what color they are if they're bad! They're still ugly.
I bought our first black cattle in 1990, and I've always liked the blaze face better than the solid blacks. The reason we try to make solid black ones is because most of our bull customers send their calves to the local stock barn at weaning time, and if we can't make their calves as uniform as possible, then they aren't getting all their calves are worth.
I just bought a black & white bull to go on Angus cows, and he wasn't easy to find! I think as more people want to make baldies out of black cows, and if they understand genetics & want to make baldies consistently, there will be a strong market for black & white bulls. You can't use a blaze faced bull on Angus cows & have a lot of luck making a high percentage of blaze faced calves.
I would have to differ with you concerning the CAB premiums not being at issue in the FOCUS 2000 meetings. There is actually no premium to the producer, only the discounts you mentioned that we wanted to get away from. The premiums are in the wholesale of meat. The producer sees no premium, only discounts if he doesn't conform.
I might also mention that Focus 2000 in my view led to the dumbing down of Simmental cattle to Angus levels of growth and milk. For 20 years straight Simmental birth weights came down while weaning weights came up. Focus 2000 just insured that would no longer be the case for a while and this API index crapola will insure it never will. You know why Focus 2000 occurred AT ALL?? Large breeders like Dave Nichols had been trying to breed black cattle. Of course it was like selecting for any one single trait, if black cattle were the top criteria then the overall quality suffered. He had a whole bunch of nothing. Also, he was getting too many solid reds when trying to breed for blacks and at that time there was ZERO demand for a solid red animal, he had too many going to the stockyard. So he embarked on a tour of the country speaking at state association meetings on the ASA dollar. Supposed to be laying the foundation for these Focus 2000 meetings he preached to anyone who would listen how his animals were what we all needed and that everyone else's were "too big for the box." Since he was so much smarter than everyone else, he would be kind enough to sell us all bulls before it was too late and the breed ruined for ever. The average number of head owned by a member of the Simmental association at that time was under 20, so a few breeders with 5 or 600 head could lead the association in what ever direction they wanted it to go.
All of these complaints from all the folks you mentioned applied to other breeds as well, Angus included. There show bulls could step over Simmental show bulls. I might ad that the reason the 10 frame animals of ALL breeds came about was the midget Angus based cow herds were far from beef producing machines. The animals these giraffes were intended to be bred to needed to be bred to a giraffe. Of course as the commercial cowherd changed so did the need for what type of animal was required to be produced by seedstock breeders. I certainly have no problem with the size of the cattle we now have for the most part. But I have a problem that the only thing a Simmental can do better than an Angus of today is yield. That is offset by the Angus ability to grade. We can't grow faster, milk better or last longer. We sure cant have lower birth weights, so why have a Simmental?
As to your assertion that the breed got more efficient and more profitable, there is no data that suggests that small cows are more efficient. Which do you deem to be more efficient, an 1100 pound cow who's calf weighs 550 at 205 days or a 1600 pound cow that weans a 650 pound calf? Its impossible to measure because the relationship of cow size to maintenance cost is not linear. In other words a 1600 pound cow doesn't require twice as much to maintain as an 800 pound cow. It's very difficult to measure. MARC data says that there is only a 10% difference in feed efficiency between the most and least efficient animals. Growth is much like a machine that multiplies money. The more money you put into it the more money comes out. If you want a machine that only takes quarters and turns them into dollars that's fine. But a machine that takes dollars and turns them into 4 dollars is makes for a much larger number on the deposit slip. 4 and 5 frame animals are incapable of growth at that level, but it doesn't take a ten frame animal to do that either.
And as to your point to being more profitable, I would say the reason that type animal is more profitable is simply because its what people want to buy. It's not profitable simply because of type. It's profitable because it meets a demand. If you had the same animal in the 80's early 90's that you have today it wouldn't be profitable. It would have the exact same traits you tout as profitable today, yet no one would buy it, no one wanted those traits back in the 80's and early 90's.
The reason you make solid bulls is because thats what your bull customers want. The reason that's what they want is that if they are not, they don't get all they could get at the sale barn or where ever they choose to sell them. You'll never find a feedlot operator with any experience say that a lot of angus based (black) cattle will feed better or have better carcasses than a lot of Shorthorn cattle that are every combination of red and white you could imagine. The very antithesis of uniformity. But he won't pay you as much for them. Why? CAB period.
