Meanings of terms - Neeed Help! Updated List

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ruhtram

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knabe said:
capacious - Lots of space, room to grow (could be used to describe many aspects of an animal)
pounds heavy
heavy footed - Heavy and slow in movement
roomy middled
broken over in the knew
weak in the loin - Thin topped , bad top (middle of the back)
breaks in the chine - Breaks in the back (curve in the back)
wasty middled
goose fronted
cute headed
post legged
high pins
flat boned
round boned
flat ribbed
pone fat - The fat deposited on either side of the tail 
carries through to twist

I started looking up some of these terms. They might not be exactly what is meant by the cattle industry.
I also added a good picture of a Pone fat picture (scroll down to page 10)
 

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ruhtram

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Can anyone help with filling more of these terms in?

Capacious - Lots of space, room to grow (could be used to describe many aspects of an animal)
Pounds Heavy
Heavy Footed - Heavy and slow in movement
Roomy Middled
Broken over in the knew
Weak in the loin - Thin topped , bad top (middle of the back)
Breaks in the chine - Breaks in the back (curve in the back)
Wasty Middled
Goose Fronted
Cute Headed
Post Legged
High Pins
Flat Boned
Round Boned
Flat Ribbed
Pone Fat - The fat deposited on either side of the tail 
Carries through to twist
 

Boot Jack Bulls

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Cruiser said:
Can anyone help with filling more of these terms in?

Capacious - Lots of space, room to grow (could be used to describe many aspects of an animal)
Pounds Heavy
Heavy Footed - Heavy and slow in movement
Roomy Middled -Big barreled, lots of spring in ribs, capacious
Broken over in the knew
Weak in the loin - Thin topped , bad top (middle of the back)
Breaks in the chine - Breaks in the back (curve in the back)
Wasty Middled
Goose Fronted-rocket fronted, choke neck, clean neck and throat latch without excessive leather or skin
Cute Headed
Post Legged
High Pinned

Flat Boned-Cannon bones appear to be more flat than round when viewed from profile

Round Boned
Flat Ribbed
Pone Fat - The fat deposited on either side of the tail 
Carries through to twist-adequate amount of muscle down the back and inside of hind leg
 

leanbeef

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Terminology & lingo is a part of every business, every organization, every community...regardless of what you do, make, raise or sell. If you want to be effective in your communication with others, it's important to know & understand that terminolog, and that includes fad slang that might be open to some level of interpretation. It's also important to use words and phrases that DESCRIBE what you mean rather than throwing out vague terms you heard somewhere & think sounds cool. I'm not sure how or when "soggy" became a part of our lingo, but it's pretty descriptive & it's widely used. We prob didn't really need that word to describe cattle back in the 80s because they just weren't!

If you have the opportunity, I suggest taking a look at beef cattle judging or evaluation clinics, workshops or classes, especially if you're in school or in college. You'll learn the terms and phrases you need to compare and describe cattle, and you'll get better at evaluation and selection. I was lucky to get recruited to judge on a college team by one of the best livestock evaluators in the country, and I really enjoyed it. I still have to keep up, because trends and terms are constantly changing, but not in terms of definitions or meaning. I get to describe cattle almost every day now, and you have to learn to be accurate in what you see and effective in describing it.
 

knabe

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Boot Jack Bulls said:
Cruiser said:
Can anyone help with filling more of these terms in?

Capacious - Lots of space, room to grow (could be used to describe many aspects of an animal)
Pounds Heavy -  they are shorter but weigh more than taller cattle and because volume weighs more than height, they are deceptively heavier
Heavy Footed - Heavy and slow in movement  - big footed
Roomy Middled -Big barreled, lots of spring in ribs, capacious
Broken over in the knee   (knew was mis-spelled)  they just buckle over in the knee, no one says it, it's just an indication of lameness
Weak in the loin - Thin topped , bad top (middle of the back)
Breaks in the chine - Breaks in the back (curve in the back)
Wasty Middled - an indication of unfitness, loosey skinned, fatty look, kinda like the rear end of an expecting cow
Goose Fronted-rocket fronted, choke neck, clean neck and throat latch without excessive leather or skin
Cute Headed  - short muzzled like irish whiskey cattle, usually means earlier maturing
Post Legged  - legs are straight like TH cattle
High Pinned--  pin bones are too high.  can lead to inadequate cleanliness in the feminine parts and supposedly make it more difficult to calve

Flat Boned-Cannon bones appear to be more flat than round when viewed from profile

Round Boned  -  see flat boned
Flat Ribbed   -  flatter in that area, sometimes fooled by cattle being just fat
Pone Fat - The fat deposited on either side of the tail 
Carries through to twist-adequate amount of muscle down the back and inside of hind leg  -  just means they carry lower between their legs.  poplar haven red alert was the first fullblood that supposedly did this.  too bad, he was notorious for no milk and his use was quickly curtailed.  he is still in a lot of popular bloodlines, i.e. sooner.

some of the terms i listed above are from the 80's and are probably not used much anymore.
 

leanbeef

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Ok...umm...not exactly.

Capacity refers to volume. Volume equals length x width x height (depth). So when we talk about capacity, we're talking about the amount of volume as measured by the internal dimension, evaluating an animal's body length, body width & body depth.

When we say an animal is "pounds heavy" it just means they weigh more. If we have the ability to weigh the animal, this becomes definitive, not subjective. If we don't have scales--and often we don't--it's important to learn to estimate weight and differences in performance. The one that weighs the most is the pounds heavy calf.

I'm not sure about "heavy footed". That's one I've never heard and frankly I'm not sure what it means or that it's the best way to describe whatever it means. If it's heavy boned or big footed, then say heavy boned or big footed. We don't weigh feet.

"Weak loined" means exactly what it says...weak in the top over theoin area. This animal appears to have a sway in their back, as opposed to a strong or straight top which is straight from the top of the shoulder to the curve of the tail head. These animals are usually loose structured and still sounder made than cattle that "bow their top" which tend to be straighter off both ends and have less flex to the hock, knee and pastern.

"Post legged" means there is little or no set to the hock. The back legs appear very straight, and the animal tends to swing the hind leg from the hip instead of flexing the hock to move forward. Picture yourself walking without bending your knee... The opposite of post legged is sickle hocked, when there is too much set to the hock joint.

High pinned (I'm not sure I've ever heard one described this way) but would mean the pin bones are set higher than the hook bones, giving the hip an upward appearance as opposed to being level from hooks to pins (desirable) or dropping in her pins. From a production standpoint, a sloped hip does make more sense because the calf comes out in a downward direction. Cattle that slope badly from hooks to pins tend to have more slope to other angles including shoulders and pasterns and might also tend to have more set to the hock. Everything is connected!

Flat ribbed is the same as being "slab sided" meaning they lack the desired shape to the rib which lends to having more volume or internal width. It doesn't necessarily make one shallow or short which are other indicators that an animal lacks volume and capacity...those are different, though. Slab sided cattle are typically also lighter muscled and narrow based, but I don't suppose that is automatically the case.

Hope that helps a little.
 

knabe

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vol is not l x w x h if there are curved surfaces.  If it were cattle would be a box

The rounder they are in their rib, chest floor, deeper in their twist, neck, the more volume they have.

The volume of a cube is overestimated compared to a sphere ( many sources document this)

Sometimes it's odd for people to see cattle walk across a scale and have a weight guessing game. Same with newborns.

it's difficult to evaluate volume when looking at cattle in the side profile only.
 

CMB

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true skeletal width.

I hear this more in the hog deal but have heard Dan Hoge use it several times at cattle shows.
 

ruhtram

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I always thought it was a positive thing..I could be wrong though.
 

leanbeef

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Dozer45 said:
Is goose necked used as a pos. or neg. term?


LOL. That made me laugh. I'm personally not a fan of what I call the pencil necked females. Too often they're too tight hearted and hard doing to suit me. I don't mind a little front end...I think those are the cattle that have some grow in em, but I guess some people don't like to look at em. I don't mind a pretty fronted one if she's soft middled...it's just hard to make em like that sometimes.

The term goose necked sure doesn't sound very flattering, does it? lol
 

Boot Jack Bulls

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leanbeef said:
Dozer45 said:
Is goose necked used as a pos. or neg. term?


LOL. That made me laugh. I'm personally not a fan of what I call the pencil necked females. Too often they're too tight hearted and hard doing to suit me. I don't mind a little front end...I think those are the cattle that have some grow in em, but I guess some people don't like to look at em. I don't mind a pretty fronted one if she's soft middled...it's just hard to make em like that sometimes.

The term goose necked sure doesn't sound very flattering, does it? lol

I agree that these two traits don't often come in the same package. I would rather have an animal that is a little wastey on the front and has a deeper and wider heart girth than a super trim front end with a pinched heart girth. Some of our best doing and producing females have some extra mass in the front third.
 

leanbeef

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I find a lot of Simmental cattle will have some front end as calves, but then they grow in to that in time. We've had a number of cattle that appear pretty waste as calves or weanlings, and by the time they're yearlings or 2-year-olds, they almost look like different animal. A lot of other breeds are a little different...it's just something I accept because I'd rather have rib and volume and easy doing over "goosey-fronted" any day. I don't think we have to settle for downright ugly, though...I'm just not real hard on em for being heavier fronted, especially if they have time & look like the kind that'll grow into it. I like em pretty well enough...it's just not the most important thing to me.
 

kidsandkows

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Great thread! I know a lot of these terms (or what they mean to me), but it is interesting to hear others describe them. Several have been described better than was described to me when i first learned the terms, much simpler. These threads are why SP is so cool.
 
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