Mill Iron A said:
I guess I couldn't disagree more with being deep chested on the side relating to foraging ability, overall capacity is what you are after and last time I checked that was L X W X H. Wide chested cattle (not because the are open topped and blown out in the shoulder) but truly wide chested cattle have an advantage on forage. Obviously they can't be hound gutted but couple that chest width with upper rib shape and ADEQUATE depth you have a winner. In general too many people are going after really sappy bellied cattle and it is merely a looks thing, if you watch those cattle walk you can tell they weren't built to be that way.
5 x 3 x 4 , 10 x 3 x 2, 12 x 5 x 1.. etc.. all equal 60 and mathematically all may have the same volume but you know that doesn't translate to all of them having the same foraging ability. I will agree, in general, wide chested cattle have an advantage on forage.. but that's not an absolute. I can post picture after picture of cattle who are bulldog chested but are so tight and restricted in the heart and gut that they are worthless. Take the classic picture of CF Trump for example. That bull is the poster child for wide chested, tubular shaped, hard doing cattle. In terms of importance, Depth is by far the most important. Followed by width, and then length. No amount of width or length can compensate for a shallow bodied animal. If you disagree with me, post some representative examples of cattle that are deep chested but also tight hearted and gutted. I don't think you can do it. I know I can post picture after picture of cattle that are wide chested but tight hearted and tight gutted thus making them terrible forage converters.
I think you've hit the nail on the head w/ upper rib shape. If you or anyone else knows anything about measuring circles (the chest barrel), you know you cannot increase the central angle (upper rib shape) without also increasing the diameter of the circle. When you increase upper rib shape, it is implicit that you increase depth of body. If you cut a circle in half, obviously the bottom must match the top.
I agree with you about the sappie bellied cattle and I've commented on this before. People, in the show ring specifically, are breeding cattle that are deep bellied but shallow chested. When you increase the gut depth relative to the chest floor depth, it creates the illusion that the cattle have much more guts than they really do. Look at the bottom line of the "Armada" bull over to your left above the cattleMax ad. Perfect example. Relative to his chest floor, he looks HUGE gutted, but I guarantee you if you put a tape on him, you'll see that the circumference of his belly isn't all that big; its the shallowness of his chest floor RELATIVE to the depth of his barrel that creates this illusion.