Santas and Duhram Reds":3tg3s506 said:
never heard of this before. Knersie, maybe you can shed some light. I found this on a Santa Gertrudis site from Namibia.
"With the new grading system in South Africa, where two-toothed cattle are now going to be classified as Super Grade Beef, the purebred and crossbred Santa will have an advantage as one of the breeds that shed their milk teeth late."
I assume this is referring to late maturity.
Not sure that is factually correct.
Our grading system works as follows. Here is a very much simplified version.
A- grade is from animals who hasn't started teething yet
Super A-grade is from animals who hasn't started teething yet and is feedlot finished.
AB- grade is 1-2 teeth. about 18-24 months
B grade 3-4 teeth. about 24-30 months.
C-grade anything that has 5 or more teeth.
The reason why the claimed late teething of the Santas in Namibia is an advantage is because they grow oxen out on the veld because its more flexible in a drought proned country. If animals start teething a few months later they will fit into the B-grade category for longer and have a better chance of being slaughter ready before going to C grade where there is a dramatic drop in price.
The Super B-grade might be an incentive from SA's side to get Namibia to use earlier maturing cattle or it may even be a case where they want to limit imports to B -grades to stop the inflow of Namibian beef. Most Namibian cattle is brahman or afrikaner influenced. While the afrikaner has excellent meat quality the same cannot always be said for the brahman. The best steaks I've eaten was from veld finished oxen in Namibia.