| My
family has been breeding Hereford cattle for over 50 years. When
you get to thinking about it, that is almost a quarter of the
time our country has been in existence. This could only happen
in a free society. You won’t see any livestock breeding programs
of enduring quality in a country run by a dictatorship.
Since their inception, we have been
using performance testing, EBV’s (Estimated Breeding Values) and
EPD’s (Expected Progeny Differences) in the selection criteria
for our breeding programs. Right now, some of my cattle are way
better than their EPD’s indicate, and some are not as good as
their numbers would have you believe. There is an old saying,
“that figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.” At present, the
Hereford breed does not have the mass of data that the Angus
breed does. This is due to smaller numbers of cattle in our
breed. Plus, less use of proven AI sires. We just need more time
and data to sort things out.
However, if you just breed cattle
by computer, you could end up like the sheep that had the
“spider syndrome”, which brings me around to visual selection.
i.e., “The Show Ring.” Years ago, in the late 70s and early 80s
I judged Polled Hereford cattle all over the country. I judged
at the Calgary Bull Sale, the PI in Portland, Cow Palace in San
Francisco, Denver Pen Bulls, Kansas City Royal, and others. At
that time, all you had to do was line them up according to
height and you looked pretty smart. My judging career ended when
I put the future National Champion heifer fourth in class at
Salem, Oregon, because I thought she was too big and masculine.
Right now, I think we are on the
verge of going back the other way on frame size in beef cattle.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see us go back to frame score 4s. The
reason for this being high priced cereal grains. The livestock
feeding and packing industry has been predicated and based on
cheap feed. The advent of biofuels is going to change that.
Biofuels are here to stay. They are both environmentally and
politically correct. Crude oil prices are down in the short
term, but that could change over night if we have some
disruption in mid east production.
The discovery of big oil reserves
in the Gulf of Mexico is problematic at best. The ocean is over
4,000 feet deep where they have to drill, and then it is another
10,000 feet to the oil. Just think what a hurricane would do to
that. They can’t even anchor their drilling platforms.
Canada is going to export a large share of their canola crop to
Europe for biodiesel. The high price of fuel over there
evidently justifies their use of Canadian canola. Pig farmers in
Ontario are going out of business due to higher feed costs.
Canada is putting ethanol plants on line, too. Higher feed costs
will force Canadian and American feed lots to want cattle that
can finish quicker and be harvested earlier. We will see more
cattle fattened on grass.
The by products from ethanol
production are low in energy and can only provide up to 40% of a
feed lot ration. Right now, DNA testing for tenderness and intra
muscular fat is being touted as the answer to our problems. Just
remember, over half the beef sold goes for hamburger. It doesn’t
have to be tender when you grind it up. I’ve often said that the
Lord made cattle breeding complicated just enough to frustrate
man. About the time you get it figured out somebody will change
the rules. There is an old saying, “The eye of the master
fattens the cattle.” A good cowman will select cattle that do
well in their environment. Fortunately, we still have a lot of
good cowmen left in the cattle business. However, change is
coming, you can bank on that.
It is going to be interesting to
see where we end up.
Editor’s Note:
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