djinwa":a2rwee9q said:
Thanks for the reply on efficiency.
Boy, if it's possible Aubracs are 25 to 30% more feed efficient, seems there would be some serious research going on. That would mean more profit, or ability to have more cattle for the same feed.
All the money being spent is being spent by producers who are breeding better cattle for their own operations; not much is being spent by producers on marketing. For example, we've spent a small fortune in the last year DNA testing our cattle and the semen we have in the tank for some preferred beef-quality and milk-quality genetics, importing semen from France, accumulating the best live fullblood genetics (in our opinion) from all over North America to see which lines work best in fescue, and making embryos. I know they're good cattle; I don't need a university (or some other producer) to tell me that. I know the beef is excellent; I've had it taste-tested by hundreds of people in a blind taste testing and it always ranked very highly.
Over time, I'd love to work with angus (both black and red), brahma, hereford, etc. producers who'd have an interest in breeding a small subset of their better cows to Aubracs for some F1's for feed-out tests (in traditional feeding/finishing situations, as well as in a grass-only situation) ... and ... if those days don't come, then, someday, I hope to buy small groups of really good quality females of some/all of these breeds myself to test it all out. For now, I'm just building my own numbers of fullblood (100%) Aubracs and doing my own thing ... and am quite content to do just that.
We have (right now) 27 head (all classes) on 25 acres, grazing pasture. We'll start to give them some hay starting in a week or two. The extra hoof prints, dung and urine will help restore our pastures (we moved to this farm about two years ago, and the pastures were really run down), so we don't mind feeding some hay for a few months, although at some point, we hope to be out of the hay-feeding business.
So, if someone wants to come see what we're doing, we welcome it. And, if not, that's good, too. People can still raise the kind of cattle they want -- I'm not in any way shape or form offended by anyone who thinks they're raising the 'best' cattle; goodness knows, I hope nobody here is offended if I think the same about my critters. In fact, I think some of the cattle of other breeds I see posted here are really (!) high quality.
djinwa":a2rwee9q said:
Or maybe they are just the wrong color. Will they be going black like the other breeds?
About a year and a half ago, the Aubrac association formalized the details of a breed-up program. Animals with 90% or more Aubrac blood (per pedigree parentage) are considered purebred Aubracs (fullbloods are 100%) ... only if they exhibit all (!) of the traditional Aubrac color markings. So, while some have (and some will, no doubt) breed higher-percentage Aubrac animals who have black (or red or whatever) coloring, they won't be able to be registered as purebred.
I'm happy to answer any/all questions to the best of my ability.