Badlands":zs9kuqgu said:
I have seen the Limi/Angus cross make 40% CAB under the same management as purebred Angus in the same herd making 20%. The Limi/Angus calves were worth $109 more than the straight Angus calves.
And this was done before the Limi's had carcass EPD, which should help things out.
The research was done at CSU. Funny how things reverse when "outside reviewers" do the research! The $100 premium commonly applied to the "Angus" cattle actually applied to the Limi/Angus cattle.
Turns out they are actually more productive mothers, too, but that work isn't done yet.
Badlands
I think there is about 60 years of research showing that a crossbred calf will outperform a similarly managed straightbred calf and that typically a crossbred mama cow is superior too either group of the two straightbred mamas in her composition. I am not knocking Lims here; but I think they could have substituted Hereford, Charolais, Gelbvieh, Brahman, Simmental, Braunvieh, Shorthorn, Pinzgauer, Maine, Chianina, Santa Gertrudis, etc for the Lims in that crossbreeding test and they would have gotten SOME sort of a bottomline $$ improvement over straightbreeding Angus. If I even tried too claim which of those crosses was BEST for every operation, I would be showing my own ignorance.
Angus is preaching straightbreeding (like they did in ~1955) and ignoring all the science compiled by two or three generations of animal scientists. At SOME point, the AAA is going to have too accept that the decline in quality grades, the increase in YG4s, a lot of that backfat on the kill floor, and that we as an industry are not making acceptable genetic progress all comes back to declining heterosis and that they and their own greedy determination too grow their percentage of the bull market by any means necessary are partially responsible. I am not bashing the Angus breed here. We would be running into problems if we as an industry were marketing 87% Chars, Piedmontese, Herefords, or Lims as our commercial cattle too.