knabe said:
please take this the right way, when i first saw the picture of the cow, it looked like a chimera meat guernsey with an ildeno head with the funny hair thing going on at the poll, with an ohlde udder, real forward, with nice small teats and a good smooth cunia shoulder. nice looking cow, interesting coat. totally awesome how easy it is to see something new and focus on the positive. like the black dock too.
ohh and i can't resist, any tenderness genes?
Ildeno, now that is a name I haven't heard in a while!! We used to have an Ildeno son in our herd. It's interesting that you mention that about her head. That heifer was bred up from an Angus cow that came out of Canada. When we bought that Canadian "Angus" herd, they had that "Chi-angus look" to them, although they were supposed to be registered Angus & they were fairly moderate framed & probably weighed 1300 lbs.. So, I would not be at all surprised if somewhere along the line if somebody did slip a little Chianina into that herd because they had that low percentage Chi look to them.
RE your tenderness question... my dad has never tested any of his cattle for tenderness, despite my constant encouragement for him to do so. We used to work together, but we really butt heads & about 10 years ago I decided that it was better for me to do my own thing & for him do his. However, I still help him when he needs help, he still asks me for advice & I still voice my opinions... sometimes he listens & sometimes he doesn't. My dad & I think a lot a like, but we are also totally different in some regards.
Anyway, my dad did sell a group of heifers to a gentleman in Missouri several years ago & that person tested that whole group. Most of those heifers came back testing 2 out of 2 stars for tenderness (the original Genestar tenderness test). He ended up using those heifers as donor cows in his composite program.
Also, we did compete in the Great Western Beef Expo in Sterling, CO two different years back in the mid 90's & we won several plaques both years. They never tested for tenderness, but one year we did have the highest overall carcass value animal, the only steer to grade prime with a yield grade 2 (and it was a fullblood), the 2nd highest gaining steer overall, a top 10 pen for feed efficiency & we narrowly missed winning the Max Fulcher carass award by .001 of a point because one of the steers yield graded exactly 3.00, but our whole pen graded choice or higher & everything else in the pen was less than a 3.00 yield grade.
Back in the 90's, Ankenman Ranch in Oklahoma, also did very well in the Oklahoma Steer Feedout with purebred Tarentaise steers. One year they tested for tenderness using a shear force test. Anything under 8.5 would be a very tender steak. 8.5 - 10 lbs. would be a tender steak. Anything over 10 lbs. would be considered a tough steak. 41 of their Tarentaise steers avg'ed 8.41 lbs. (very tender). All 131 steers in the test (including Ankenman's 41) avg'ed 8.98 lbs. (tender steaks). If my math is correct, that means that the other 90 steers avg'ed around 9.24 lbs. (which is still tender).
With all that said, while I don't have the GeneStar test on my dad's cattle, I feel pretty confident in telling you that I think that she shouldl do OK on the tenderness test. I plan to test some of my F1's fairly soon & I'll let you know how that turns out.