So the composite beef registry.....is non-profit or what? What does it cost? Essentially it is cut down low cost......not quite a breed association? Who would setup the.......required percentages? Could you have one herd set up registries for itself only? Is this concept competition or a threat to large breeds? I could see.......say the Angus association attacking a composite system from a market share aspect.
The Composite Beef Cattle Registry is a for profit entity. Our rates are very affordable, Membership is $25 annually and Junior Membership is $10 annually. Our registration rates start at $10 for animals under 240 days of age, and the highest rate is $35 for animals that are over 24 months of age. (For new members we give them the opportunity during the first year of membership to register animals of any age for our lowest rate of $10 per head.
We don't deal with the politics and policies that many other registries experience. We are here for the breeders!
With some of the breeds experiencing such low membership and numbers of cattle, we offer them a solution to by registering their cattle through our Registry. Some Associations no longer exist but there are still breeders that like the breed and wish to continue on. While they have everything either written down or in a computer, they have no genetic evaluation or EPDs. Along with the registration and through whole herd reporting we offer EPDs (monthly) which is truly multi-breed with a database containing over 40 breeds and over 3 million animals.
In order to have EPDs a group normally would need to have at least 1,000 active animals to have a meaningful evaluation. With our situation, even 1 herd can have an evaluation.
The way we are seeing things, there are two things that are happening.
First with Seedstock producers, most of the breed associations membership and services are expensive. Many have a membership of $100 annually. Then with whole herd reporting, you are charged anywhere from $15 and up annually for the active cows in your herd, but you do receive a free registration with that. Our membership is $25 annually and our whole herd reporting is only $10 per active cow and registration is 1/2 the rate.
For example on a 100 cow herd, with many registries you would pay $100 for the membership and at $15 per active animal for whole herd reporting another $1,500 for a total of $1,600 per year. Now the same 100 cow herd with us would pay $25 for membership and $10 per cow for whole herd reporting for a base total of $1,025. (now if a breeder only registers 50% of the calves at $5 per head (the 1/2 rate) that would be another $250) for an annual total of $1,275. Saving a breeder $325. Many breeders have more than one breed, so add the cost of additional memberships for each Association. These costs all ad up.
If you look at a little of what is going on, there are a few Angus guys that have purebred herds that are not registered with the Angus Association, but they sell bulls for breeding purposes from those herds. How many times have seedstock producers sold bulls to commercial customers and these commercial guys could care less about the papers.
Secondly, from comments that we have heard from some commercial producers, the biggiest reason they do not use Composite bulls is there is not set breed percentage. For example: Brangus, Santa Gertrudis, just to name a couple of breeds are a 5/8 x 3/8 breed composition. Now look at the other registries, Simmental, Limousin, Gelbvieh, etc. and their composites can be any percentage of Angus as long as their is 25% of the Association breed in the cross.
By setting some standards, we feel that commercial producers would be more willing to use Composite bulls with set breed percentages. And many of these producers have crossbred cattle, but even if they have straightbred cattle, with our multi-breed EPDs they could know how a bull would possibly work in their herds.
Now, with our new livestock management program just about ready for use. We can first of all gather and extensive amount of information, but mainly we can offer producers (yes even small producers) tha ability to take advantage of Value-Added marketing opportunities that can add to bottom-line profits!
