Let me understand this, the pursuit of cattle that fit the ideal look, big hipped, huge a$$ed, strait topped, smooth shouldered, heavy boned and cleaned fronted (characteristics I see bulls on this web paged knocked for not possessing all the time) and yes hair, have led to cattle that can be hard doing, high birth weights, structure issues, poor milking, and poor calving ease.All bred to be eye appealing. Even when the judges are Cattle Breeders, College Professors, all who could change the way show steers are bred by choosing cattle more in the middle pick cattle in the extreme.
How is this different then commercial cattle as well as cattle breeds.
The Angus whose pursuit for great EPD's have led to some cattle that are not phenotipicaly appealing. Hatchet a$$ is one that comes to mind.
How about the discussion on the 1800 pound cow, how did we get here, by chasing higher weaning weights, as cattle were bred to get bigger weaning weights on steers and heifers from these breeding were put into service, cows size began to increase, and their calves had higher weaning weights so we just kept the cycle going. That is until some one realized that these monster cows were not economically prudent. All you hear from the bull producers is the smaller bulls still do not sell like the large framed ones. Have we learned anything yet, some have but most have not.
Feeder steers still get docked if their smaller framed, larger framed steers are still in demand, how are you going to breed down your cows size and still produce steers that will get premium if you plan on keeping the heifers for replacements?
Unless breeders and growers are on the same page you wont, as long as judges pick the type of steers they are picking now show cattle will be extreme. The end consumer will not drive the change cattle buyers will on the commercial side and judges will on the show side.
Well this is just my observation, sorry for the dissertation.
Finally a concise, unassailable summation. Good one, nova!
