Ft. Worth steer show

As far as most Texas steer people are concerned, Ft Worth is already the show that throws all the breeds into one class.  They’d be more likely to add a Holstein class than eliminate the Angus or Hereford classes.  Those two breeds are a tradition there, their breed champs regularly bring in the $60-80k range vs $20k for others.

Suggest that any major show not split breeds up at all and the American folks will find you the fastest ticket back to whatever state you came from.

cowboybecoachin said:

Another way to fix the "classification" problem is to DNA the winners. If you DNA'd the first and second place steers from each class (which would include the champions, and random test 3 others from the top 10 in each class, you could clean up the Angus show with DNA results on 15 animals. If the resulting penalty for a 'dirty" calf was to be banned for life from ever showing in Ft. Worth again, I cannot beleive anyone would chance using a cross calf  to place 3rd and get lucky and not be DNA'd. Not worth the risk, and you could not win the show.

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Won't work, it will take too much time.  Plus people would take the chance, look how many already take a chance on not being the random with the weighback.  People could say they were sold the calf as a purebred and didn't know that the calf was being falsely indentified.  Only way to help the situation any is to clean house on the classifiers, maybe put them in voters booths or something where nobody can see who they are and send one of their buddies through with their calf.

cowboybecoachin said:

Another way to fix the "classification" problem is to DNA the winners. If you DNA'd the first and second place steers from each class (which would include the champions, and random test 3 others from the top 10 in each class, you could clean up the Angus show with DNA results on 15 animals. If the resulting penalty for a 'dirty" calf was to be banned for life from ever showing in Ft. Worth again, I cannot beleive anyone would chance using a cross calf  to place 3rd and get lucky and not be DNA'd. Not worth the risk, and you could not win the show.

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Too extreme.  Kids have no idea what they are really buying.  It's bad for us as a business or whatever we are to be kicking out calves after they win.  Only needs to be done when someone intentionally cheats and gets caught.  Classification ain't exactly the same thing as substance abuse.

I don't like the Angus sift either.  I do sympathize with you - we've had more real purebred Angus calves kciked out than we have crossbred calves we've sold that wound up being run Angus.  I can't define it, but the secret to me seems to be head shape.  We've got purebred Angus bulls (i.e from Sitz's and R.A. Browns) whose heads are "wrong" - they are too long.  We've got half blood Maine bulls who have a perfect Angus head.

There isn't a good answer.  Frankly, I wish we'd pay to bring in out of state Angus (and all other breeds for that matter) cattlemen to classify.  Fort Worth is extra rough because the kid doesn't get to show at all. 

In order of importance...

1 - A kid forcing a cocky necked head down will get you kicked out faster than you realize.  It's painfully obvious when kids have been told to keep the head down.

2 - A short and round head.

3 - Thickness over the shoulders.