Recent content by beef

Are the IMF EPDs of your 2 year old cows similar to those of your mature cows?

I see where the Choice-Select was $11.50 last week. That's $92.00 on an 800lb carcass. Would you like a little CAB to go with the crow? :tiphat:

I'm surprised the article didn't point out the big advantage SE calves had for dressing percentage.

It depends...stocking rate, type of grass and fertlizer are more influential than genetics.

1.81 lbs of feed to 1 pound of gain ... that should be a record ... posted on April 1... hmmm ;-)

Sand Hills: Which other sons of 4465 have you used.

If you are thinkng of a small scale grass fed production system, I think the most important factor will be sales price. It will be expensive to produce on a small scale in the best of years; quality grass fed beef would have been practically impossible to produce in our area this year - unless...

You must have one heck of a successful program when you can imply that Galen Fink's sale averages leave something to be desired. For the record, he sold 186 Angus bulls in his last sale for an average of $3,489, 74 Charolais bulls for $3,317 and 16 Char x Angus bulls for $3,016. Most breeders...

knabe: The tenderness EPDs I mentioned are the ones for bulls which have been progeny tested for tenderness. They are randomly mated to females in order to remove the females' influence from the test. The EPD indicates the sire's contribution to tenderness. You can then compare sire to sire...

My understanding is that the tenderness EPDs result from random matings which should exclude female influence. I am not sure how much aging is used but I am positive that they are post mortem :) . Here are some links to ABS website information on tenderness...

OK Jeanne: I wasn't very clear about the WB vs. Genestar issue in my post. I would rather have good WB data on a bull's calves than simply rely on the fact that a bull has however many stars for tenderness. I do think the Genestar has merit - but I am surprised by the emphasis some folks are...

MikeC: Marketing gimmick? I thought the same until a bull I tested had 8 stars for feed efficiency. I then realized how clueless I had been and now understand that Genestar is the only thing we have to consider when breeding cattle. ;-) Seriously, I think it is better than nothing but I...

I wonder about the hooves on cow and calf.

Mike: What do you and others who have been involved in efficiency testing think about the marker test? Is it something you all will be doing in your herds (apart from the test animals you mentioned) or looking at when selecting sires? Would it help you select bulls to place on test?

Mike: What do you and others who have been involved in efficiency testing think about the marker test? Is it something you all will be doing in your herds (apart from the test animals you mentioned) or looking at when selecting sires? Would it help you select bulls to place on test?