Caustic Burno
Well-known member
True Grit Farms":1xagqqnd said:djinwa":1xagqqnd said:At some point, due to the fraud of CAB, and animal welfare issues, something will have to change.
The part of CAB I get a kick out of is the word CERTIFY. I mean, when you certify something, you give complete assurance that it is true. So to certify that a CAB animal is actually angus, but is not, is complete and utter fraud. Excuses can be made, but how would it look if I painted a Mitsubishi tractor green and certified it as John Deere?
True Grit Farms":1xagqqnd said:IMO They started out with a good product and knew how to market it. And in case it was before your time, Angus was black before black was cool.
Actually, black never has been cool, but hot. Black hides are an undesirable trait because of heat stress, as animal scientists are making more obvious. So black was never a good product. Might as well promote prolapses or bad udders or bad feet or poor gain or whatever. We ignore bad traits when we think they make us money. Of course, it is much easier to see the check at the salebarn than the costs of heat stress, so few care.
When thousands of cattle died in Iowa from heat, studies showed in some pens only 20% of the cattle were black, but they represented 80% of death loss. And I recall some years ago a poster here lost 600+ steers from heat and the blacks had 5 times the death rate. How many of these cases before major media attention happens?
Someone on another site posted this article.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 51dbe02d86
Higher temperatures and heat stress alone can reduce cattle production by reducing feed intake, feed efficiency, and causing mortality. The provision of shade and water offers production benefits, especially for Bos taurus cattle.
-----------
Brown-Brandl et al. conducted an assessment of heat tolerance of Angus, MARCIII (crossbreed consisting of Pinzgauer, Red Poll, Hereford, and Angus breeds), Gelbvieh, and Charolais breeds with varying hide color (black, dark red, tan, white, respectively). Black hided cattle had the greatest respiration rates, panting scores, and surface temperatures followed by dark red, then tan, and then white cattle. The development of heat stress increased drinking and standing, decreased eating, lying, and physical activity. Darker cattle made more behavioral adjustments than lighter cattle. These heat tolerance results are driven by cattle with lighter hair coats having lower solar absorption.
It just goes to show you that science studies can rig the numbers to match the results that they want to achieve. I'm willing to bet more black cows froze to death than all other colored cows in last year blizzards. Florida is now full of black cows now and when I was growing up there was few to no black cows in south Florida. Why are polar bears white, Africans black, Norwegians very light skinned? And everyone knows that grey - white cattle with humps are easy to handle.
You need to have cattle that were raised and are accustomed to your environment. To me that's the most important thing and means a lot more than breed. Back before cattle and the land was managed for cattle breed played a major part. Now all cattle are managed or the rancher is out business.
The Angus fad is a USA thing most boxed beef coming into the USA Today is Brahman influenced.
I wonder how much gets put under the CAB sign at the local grocery
