Shady Lane
Well-known member
Gonewest,
Thanks for taking the time to write such a concise post.
I agree with many of the things that you have posted here.
One thing I don't understand though, is why everyone in this business seems to always talk about extremes? On one hand we have groups of people that are talking about 'Maximum Performance". While I completely agree that growth and performance in our cattle is EXTREMELY important and lets face facts, it is one of the single most important economic factors in this business. The cow calf man, the backgrounder and the feedlot finishing aspects of this business all get paid on how much these cattle grow and how much weight they gain. End of story...
That being said, I don't know if we have to chase this to an extreme? I don't know if we are truly seeking "Maximum Performance" in this regard? Frankly I have no interest in going back down the road of the 80's monsters, the Ayatollah Craze, the Yard Stick Cattle or whatever you may wish to call it.
On the other hand, in the same marketplace and market conditions, in the same time period, we have people talking about cattle with 3.5 and 4 frame scores and 900lb mature cows and touting that as being efficient. Frankly I don't see it being more efficient to purposely breed the growth and performance out of the cattle? Unless you find it more "efficient" to take home a smaller calf check in the fall?
Some people are so proud of these 900lb cows, yet I fail to see where they fit into the marketplace in most common scenarios. If an average feedlot steer is 1,400lb going to slaughter is using a cow with the genetics to MATURE to only 900lb an efficient way of doing this? What sort of terminal "Maximum Growth" bulls are we going to have to use to achieve this sort of performance on cows with genetics that clearly lack this kind of growth?
This is sort of like saying it is more efficient to fill my swimming pool with a drinking straw than it is with a garden hose.
One buzzword that gets thrown around so much on this board and in the industry as a whole is the term "Moderate". So I borrowed this definition from Websters dictionary: "tending toward the mean or average amount or dimension".
To me, that definition exactly fits the description of moderate cattle, cattle that are not extreme in any one dimmension.
So often I hear people calling frame 4 cattle or 900lb mature cows "moderate", when this to me is the completely the opposite of the meaning of this word. In my mind those cattle are actually quite extreme! They are in fact extremely small.
My thoughts on the initial subject of this thread, while I have not seen the flyer sent out by the Sullivan operation, I did attend NWSS in Denver this year.
My initial thoughts when I first arrived on the grounds and took a quick walk through the cattle on the Hill were "Wow, you hear so many people in the US these days talking about downsizing cattle, smaller framed cattle and throwing around the word "Moderate". "But many of these cattle appear to be trending to extremely large". There were some very big framey females on the Hill this year I felt.
Then I took a walk down into the yards, toured through some of the bulls on display, watched a small part of the pen show and had a look at many of the bulls that were for sale throughout the yards.
There seemed to be some real polar opposites?
I then thought that there were many cattle that were once again, very extreme. Except this time there were cattle that were extremely small framed and in many instances lacked the necesary growth and performance to be commercially viable for many operations.
I thought about this phenomenom all weekend while in Denver, and tried to come up with an explanation for this. The best explanation I could come up with in my own mind was that we are at a crossroad in this breed and maybe even in the industry as a whole. I'm not entirely sure where that will take us or what the marketplace might look like in 5 or 10 years but it did make up my own mind on a few of my own thoughts as a breeder and that is to simply keep doing what I am doing and breed cattle that I believe to be "Moderate" and maintain a balance of traits, an acceptable mature frame size and posess growth, performance and soundness that are usefull to the industry.
These are my rambling thoughts one crisp early morning in Saskatchewan.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a concise post.
I agree with many of the things that you have posted here.
One thing I don't understand though, is why everyone in this business seems to always talk about extremes? On one hand we have groups of people that are talking about 'Maximum Performance". While I completely agree that growth and performance in our cattle is EXTREMELY important and lets face facts, it is one of the single most important economic factors in this business. The cow calf man, the backgrounder and the feedlot finishing aspects of this business all get paid on how much these cattle grow and how much weight they gain. End of story...
That being said, I don't know if we have to chase this to an extreme? I don't know if we are truly seeking "Maximum Performance" in this regard? Frankly I have no interest in going back down the road of the 80's monsters, the Ayatollah Craze, the Yard Stick Cattle or whatever you may wish to call it.
On the other hand, in the same marketplace and market conditions, in the same time period, we have people talking about cattle with 3.5 and 4 frame scores and 900lb mature cows and touting that as being efficient. Frankly I don't see it being more efficient to purposely breed the growth and performance out of the cattle? Unless you find it more "efficient" to take home a smaller calf check in the fall?
Some people are so proud of these 900lb cows, yet I fail to see where they fit into the marketplace in most common scenarios. If an average feedlot steer is 1,400lb going to slaughter is using a cow with the genetics to MATURE to only 900lb an efficient way of doing this? What sort of terminal "Maximum Growth" bulls are we going to have to use to achieve this sort of performance on cows with genetics that clearly lack this kind of growth?
This is sort of like saying it is more efficient to fill my swimming pool with a drinking straw than it is with a garden hose.
One buzzword that gets thrown around so much on this board and in the industry as a whole is the term "Moderate". So I borrowed this definition from Websters dictionary: "tending toward the mean or average amount or dimension".
To me, that definition exactly fits the description of moderate cattle, cattle that are not extreme in any one dimmension.
So often I hear people calling frame 4 cattle or 900lb mature cows "moderate", when this to me is the completely the opposite of the meaning of this word. In my mind those cattle are actually quite extreme! They are in fact extremely small.
My thoughts on the initial subject of this thread, while I have not seen the flyer sent out by the Sullivan operation, I did attend NWSS in Denver this year.
My initial thoughts when I first arrived on the grounds and took a quick walk through the cattle on the Hill were "Wow, you hear so many people in the US these days talking about downsizing cattle, smaller framed cattle and throwing around the word "Moderate". "But many of these cattle appear to be trending to extremely large". There were some very big framey females on the Hill this year I felt.
Then I took a walk down into the yards, toured through some of the bulls on display, watched a small part of the pen show and had a look at many of the bulls that were for sale throughout the yards.
There seemed to be some real polar opposites?
I then thought that there were many cattle that were once again, very extreme. Except this time there were cattle that were extremely small framed and in many instances lacked the necesary growth and performance to be commercially viable for many operations.
I thought about this phenomenom all weekend while in Denver, and tried to come up with an explanation for this. The best explanation I could come up with in my own mind was that we are at a crossroad in this breed and maybe even in the industry as a whole. I'm not entirely sure where that will take us or what the marketplace might look like in 5 or 10 years but it did make up my own mind on a few of my own thoughts as a breeder and that is to simply keep doing what I am doing and breed cattle that I believe to be "Moderate" and maintain a balance of traits, an acceptable mature frame size and posess growth, performance and soundness that are usefull to the industry.
These are my rambling thoughts one crisp early morning in Saskatchewan.
