Those Scotch Puds

[librarian]

What were the birthweights like?
Were calving problems common? ( blocky calves, square heads, bone, shoulders)
Or was calving pretty easy?
Weaning weights?
Yearling weights?
Finish weights?
Carcass quality?
Finish age? Was this a baby beef production paradigm?
Would an adult cow have weighed more or less than 1000 lbs?
Not really looking for all the reasons they were useless, just wondering what they were useful for?

 

[justintime]

I am just going  by my memory, but I seem to remember helping far more cows and heifers calve back when my dad had a Shorthorn herd with lots of old Scottish blood in them. We used 3 Louada bulls and also used some semen from bulls like Bapton Constructor, and some early Polled Shorthorn bulls. We did not weigh every calf back then, but I am pretty sure lots of 80 lb calves were helped at birth. Today I hear so many people talking about the hard calving issues they have with their Shorthorns today and I am finding the exact opposite. I just had our 62nd calf born in 2016 and I have assisted 2 calve. One was a breach and it was dead. The other was a heifer who had a malpresentation that needed a leg straightened out. Other than that they are coming on their own and from a variety of sires from around the world.
As for the use of the old Scottish cattle, I can really not think of many good uses. There were some good cattle in that era, however, most of these cattle had very poor carcass stats and this was one of the reasons they lost favor in the industry. When we started feeding cattle and followed our Shorthorns through slaughter, we were shocked just how poor some of these cattle were. I can remember having 1100 lb fat steers that yielded rib eyes of 8 square inches. The Irish cattle and some of the dual purpose lines were a big help in improving the carcasses on these cattle, however by then, most of the damage had been done and it took decades to start to see acceptance of Shorthorns again.

 

[knabe]

On a limited set that went through the steer feeding futurity 3 years in a row at cal poly in the 80's, the shorthorns had really small rib eyes, excessive back fat along with insufficient marbling with only large flecks. I know because I took pictures of all the carcasses for three years of all the animals that participated. Probably the only rib eyes that were smaller were Longhorns and they had much better marbling. Almost perfect portion size for today.

 

[librarian]

Hmm..I had a feeding those Scotch calves might have been real blockheads.
The remark about small ribeye being appropriate for today's consumer is relevant.
When we select for larger REA do we also select for larger tenderloin?
Are selection for diameter of rib eye muscle and total length of the muscle strongly correlated?
Does the size of the rib eye muscle tell us anything about the pattern in of muscle elsewhere in the animal?
When photographing carcasses was there a breed that seemed consistently superior?
Thanks for your help.

 

[beebe]

Well someone has to stick up for the puds.  I believe there were some Oakwood bulls with large rib eyes.  I also believe that in general 1200 pound cows will wean more pounds of calf per acre than will 1500 pound cows.  A little extra back fat will help a cow stand a tough winter in my part of the country.

 

[knabe]

When photographing carcasses was there a breed that seemed consistently superior?
Thanks for your help.

annoyingly, longhorn, longhorn cross. they were the most heavily, evenly marbled, but with smallest ribeye, average back fat.  i didn't eat them, so i can't speak to their taste or tenderness.

 

[oakview]

JIT's memories are just like mine.  One of the first heifers I bought with my own money was a daughter of Bapton Crusader.  She never stood up again after pulling her calf.  The first heifer I showed was a granddaughter of Bapton Constructor.  She was small, very small, maybe weighed 800 pounds at 18 months of age.  She was third at the county fair in a class of at least a dozen.  The judge praised her square head, small frame, and blockiness (kind of similar to some of the cattle I see winning today).  He was a University professor, so he had to be an expert.  She never bred, which may have been a blessing.  The family of my best friend in grade school had a 100+ head Hereford cow herd.  There were dead calves all over the place every spring when I visited.  A very notable Hereford ranch in Iowa that we visited when I was on the ISU judging team in the 70's used a Longhorn bull on all their heifers.  Were those square headed Herefords born with horns?  400 pound weaning weights were common and the universities said 450 pounds was a good goal.  We fed a lot of cattle in the 60's, 70's, and 80's and avoided black cattle like the plague.  The order buyer sent us a group of Angus heifers once, and only once, and they finished at less than 850 pounds.  And I mean they were finished.  Sometime look up Prince Eric of Sunbeam.  He was THE most famous Angus bull of the 50's or 60's and was so revered that I believe he is buried at the Angus Association office.  As far as carcass quality goes, the MARC data of the 80's and 90's was very favorable to Shorthorns.  A neighbor that had Simmental and Hereford cows asked his Hereford field man why he shouldn't just turn out a Shorthorn bull with all his cows after reviewing the information.  He didn't think his field man had a good response. 

 

[librarian]

Well, I am always thinking about the grass fed niche. Not even commercial grass fed on the Australian or South American scale, but the small diversified farmer in the USA that is trying to establish a local meat trade. Cattle operations take a lot of land and these folks are usually on farms of around 100 acres, marginal soil and probably hilly.
So, in addition to ask all the other costs, one must consider the impact of heavy animals on hillsides and erosion of thin or sandy soils.
The old light footed hill cattle come to mind. These hill cattle fill an ecological space somewhere between goat and pony. They will never yield an impressive amount of meat, but, according to the Romans, the meat was sweet and they preferred to eat the small local cattle.
If one doesn't look to the Scotch type for true light bw and calving ease, is, or was, there any strain of Shorthorn with small frame size and small calves? Some unpopular breeder somewhere with lousy land?

 

[r.n.reed]

I can't think of any Shorthorns,but the Business Breed has that strain that produces those fawn calves,should be about perfect. ;D

 

[justintime]

I showed my first 4-H steer at our local regional show in 1960 and I was honored to have my steer picked as the Reserve Grand Champion out of a show of 182 steers. My steer weighed 820 lbs and was born on March 10th. The show was held the first week of July the following year. My dad cooked barley and poured the feed to this steer to get him to this weight. He always said the only reason my steer did not win, was because he was two months younger than  the Champion steer ( who was born in January). I can remember this steer very well. I received $.32/ pound for him in the sale, and I was almost embarrassed because I got so much more than the other kids in our club did. The sale average was $.17 per pound. I can't remember what this steer would have weighed at weaning, but I can only assume he was probably 400 lbs or less. He was the biggest steer calf my family had that year.
I have lots of pictures of the cattle my family had in the 30s and 40s and they were totally different than these little cattle from the 50s and 60s. The trend to smaller framed cattle was pushed by the office and college cowboys, most of whom never had fed an animal and did not have to get their income from them. This should be a lesson for everyone today. As Donald McGillivary of the famous Calrossie herd in Scotland told me 4 years ago when I visited his farm in Scotland, he hoped there weren't any Shorthorns left that were decendents of the cattle from that era. He said that the Scottish breeders, including himself , got all wrapped up in chasing fads, with no concern for the beef industry. He said that they were the reason that the Shorthorn breed almost went extinct in Britain, and were placed on the endangered breed list for several years.

 

[librarian]

I'm not advocating this as a wise direction for the Shorthorn breed to take. I'm just trying to apply my imagination to the fact that some producers, in some situations, can net more benefit from small cattle than from large cattle. Being open minded and considering the selection process.
On the subject of Longhorns.. Here is a random picture of a Longhorn x Lowline that I saved from somewhere.
.

 

[justintime]

I'm not advocating this as a wise direction for the Shorthorn breed to take. I'm just trying to apply my imagination to the fact that some producers, in some situations, can net more benefit from small cattle than from large cattle. Being open minded and considering the selection process.
On the subject of Longhorns.. Here is a random picture of a Longhorn x Lowline that I saved from somewhere.
.

I think there is probably a good niche market for some smaller framed Shorthorns. If I was to try to build a breeding program, I would try to start with a base of smaller framed females from some of today's smaller mature size bloodlines. There is probably some semen available from some of the better bulls from the past that could be blended with these females. I think you could end up with more useful smaller framed cattle than if you tried to base your herd on the older genetics alone.

 

[librarian]

Yes, exactly. I am just having a hard time locating Shorthorns that are truly smaller framed for at least 3 generations. Using the old bulls is essentially an F1 cross with almost any Shorthorn pedigree with the same erratic outcomes in the F2 if you go back on modern genetics. There is always the possibility though, that there is truly moderate herd out there.
I am speaking of one step down in size from the classic influenced homogeneous herds like those of Kaper and Larson, with comparable predictability.