Yield and Quality Grade Question

[countrygirl3]

Just got our carcass data back on our calves that went to the packer this spring. I understand what yield and quality grade are but I am not sure what the average is or if our numbers are bad or good. So anyone out there who understands this type of stuff, if you could let me know where we need to improve ( and what that would take) and if we are above or below average that would be great.
We sent 80 calves (60 600 lb steers and 20 550 lb heifers) in the fall to our buyer. He thought they would be towards the middle or the end as far as being ready to send to the packer based on their age and selling weight. They ended up going way before any of his other calves. That is good, right? When we got the carcass results back they are as follows:
All calves went at the same time.
75% Choice, 25% Select
Yield Grade 1= 11%, Yield Grade 2= 48%, Yield Grade 3= 41%
The buyer said his favorite thing about our calves was that there were absolutely no discounted calves at time of slaughter (he always has at least one or more in every group).
So any insight would be much appreciated. And don't worry about picking them apart, that is what I want. It won't hurt my feelings any.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

This might help a little. The Simmental breed has been on the front of research in this area, in my opinion.

http://www.simmental.org/site/userimage ... cesays.pdf
This is an older document, but it helps explain where your cattle fall and that you actually did OK. Improvement can be done in the YG area.
Another older one, but good information
http://www.simmental.org/site/pdf/sim_t ... spring.pdf

 

[cow pollinater]

You need to ask your buyer what his grid looks like before you start trying to fix things.
What you're already doing looks really good for MOST grids. Most of them will pay a premium for YG1 and sometimes 2 and most won't discount for YG3. Almost all of them pay premiums for choice.
In your situation, if your buyer was selling to someone like US premium beef, for example, he/she likely received a premium for almost every calf in addition to the no discounts. Your YG1's and some of the twos were likely the selects and your choice calves were likely in the YG3 and some in the two. Either way they received a premium. There would likely be very few calves in the YG3 and select category which is the only group of cattle in your scenario that don't receive a premium and they still don't get a discount.
I would not change much without finding out what grid your buyer is looking at. Other than that I would focus on quality grade over yield but not so extreme that you lose having all YG1-3. If you can identify the cows that are giving you the YG1-2 and breed them to a well marbled angus and then take your almost pure english cows and breed them simangus/balancer or something like that then you'd be as close to perfect as any of us ever get.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

Numbers look pretty good to me. Getting a choice steer with a yield 2 will make you some pretty good cash.

 

[countrygirl3]

Thanks everyone and thank you Fire Sweep Ranch for the reading. It gave me some good insight. I will have to find out what the buyer is looking at but right now I am just trying to figure out the best direction for our cow herd ideally. We bought the ranch we have with a little of every breed and color under the rainbow. We have been increasing in numbers and have went really heavy black angus with balancer. We are having to rotate out a lot of bulls this year and are just trying to decide which way to go based on what our calves are doing now. Would some Simangus bulls do us any good? Or would we be better off sticking straight angus?