i'll give you my perspective. i'm a novice. used to show a lot. never bred anything. then 20 years later, bought two cows with good bloodlines built the opposite way, one with old breding and new calves, the other, new breeding with and old line calf. read everything i can, feel like a rudderless boat. feel like i should breed to show calves since that's what i used to do, but want nice females that can put lbs on a calf on irrigated improved pastures. want some tenderness, carcass genes, but know that the couch potato tv watching cattle may not be fertile. like participating on boards like these. at this point, still bumpiing off of every fad, but mostly interested in the type of cattle that have been in the guess the bull threads. the thing i like about them is that they are typically older, and proven, and still look good, and don't look bunk fed. the show calf industry seems like they are homgenizing everything to be the same, and given selection, they will get there except for hair color. it seems like beauty always seems to be extremes. when different human faces are merged into one average face, there is beauty, which in cattle is my opinion too, but it's different with cattle. as we tug from one extreme to the next, we reinforce easily discernable differences, rather than distiling prepotent individuals. to me, every fad mongrelizes the industry, which is why there aren't many great ones. as someone who studies genetics, it seems such a waste to eliminate diversity between cattle breeds and merge them into one. maybe in the end, it doesn't matter as good show jocks will seek out the old bloodlines anyway for something different.
if you could see me you would see I am blushing. Thanks Ladies. Appreciate the compliments, but Red, as I said today. This board is a TREMENDOUS resource for me. I really appreciate the information I have discovered on here. The folks are really genuinine! You ladies have also been a GREAT resource for many.
