All Things Livestock...

[texasjohn]

OK, Spivey man.. hate to disillusion you... it's all different from what you are thinking... you are in the business of RAISING GRASS. You happen to harvest it with critters.. and, then sell the grass that didn't end up being of interest to EasyEd as beef.

Next comment re your horn-filled beliefs... if you REALLY want a LARGE animal with LONG horns.. you are in a good situation... just steer a bunch of your young longhorn bulls and keep them for about 12 years... you will be totally amazed at their grown body size and horn length. Reason is that removing the hormones means that the animals actually continue to grow their entire life... both horns and the body height. Check out the studies by Jon Bonsma... I bet that EasyEd knows what I'm talking about.

Now, I gotta tell you.. if you breed a good Beefmaster bull to a good longhorn cow... it'll be regressing about 100 years of genetics... both breeds have their positive advantages... but I don't think that they would fit together very well.

Glad you enjoyed the BBU magazine and pictures. There will be some sales in your area... go by and check them out to see in person what a Beefmaster looks like... just remember, grain fed fat sells but those are expensive pounds! Very few cowmen (I think it's about 1% or less) can look at a grain fat animal and a range condition animal and determine which is actually the objectively better animal. The human eye will be incredibly drawn to the fat critter. I have to fight this problem in myself every time I start to purchase a bull.

EasyEd... can't wait to see how thin you once were! Hmm... I bet your dissertation has one of those long, convoluted, multi-phrased, carefully parsed and qualified titles I can't wait to hear what it is

And, yes, I am shocked you are falling in love with an untouchable Australian mini-bovine. I guess I could believe that there would be less hoof pan, thus perhaps better water penetration and better grass growth and perhaps a little more forage per acre... but, does the breed actually result in more beef pounds per acre? I would think this would be offset by other factors such as more shots to give, etc. I know, I know... there is the commentary about how hardy they are, small birth weight, etc.... I can't think of any breed that doesn't make some sort of similar claims that, upon careful scientific record keeping, either is unprovable, or results from sample selection or variation within breed.... and this breed has only 251 females (in 1993... wonder why this hasn't been updated since it is over 10 years old)

Seems to me, if you want something small that you can handle and has horns.. get angora goats.... or "spanish goats" Just funn'in you, Ed... Thanks for pointing out this new breed.. never had heard of it. Intersting that somebody has actually gone away from the "bigger is better" cry... didn't even stop at the "moderation and balance" point, but dropped right down to the "low growth rate is good" motto. Are the Aussies stuck in the '60's where "less is more?" Was there any avowed purpose, other than to prove that an intelligent breeding design could prove Darwin right?

 

[Spiveyman]

Texasjohn, that made for a good laugh this morning! I figured mixing Beefmaster and Longhorn would be a sacrilege, just wanted to have some fun there.

That is a good point about us raising grass and selling naturally processed grass. Actually the grocery store where we sell it is kind of a... well without offending folks let's just say it's kind of granola. About half of the clientell think we are evil for harming animals, and about 1/10 of that crowd are activists, will run over our kids with their shopping carts just to get their point across. We have tons of people tell us that they are vegetarians. I always respond with, "Great, so are our cattle!" I guess they don't go for the "you are what you eat" deal. I also ask them, "If we weren't supposed to eat animals, then why did God make them out of meat?"

We've gone back and forth on whether to use bull or steer meat. Since we slaughter around 20 months, the bulls put on so much more muscle and flesh out so much better than the steers do, however we've had some really great results using steers. Fantastic taste! They are a bit smaller and only yield about 58% of hoof weight compared to 62% for the bulls, but I think we're going with steers. It also makes life easier than having 50 bulls in a field who all go nuts every time the wind blows across the neighbor's cows. We bought a Calicrate bander as they are supposed to have the least impact on the animals, not supposed to impact growth... etc. compared to cutting them. Most of my family do it old school with a pocket knife because you can't get the mountain oysters if you band. Mmmmmmm......

That's all for the quality of the meat, not the horns. None of our beef animals will ever have great horns because they will be slaughtered before they get there. The cows have some pretty impressive horns, and our oldest bull (the brindle in my avatar) is doing pretty good. However we picked up a steer this weekend, about 8 years old, ~1600 lbs who had to turn his head sideways to get on the trailer. Massive horns, looks a lot like Bevo if we have any UT folk out there. I don't have a picture, but will get one when I get a chance. Nice lawn ornament for when we do tours. He's so gentle, just meandered up on the trailer, didn't give it a thought, and did the same thing getting off. We're going to work with him and hopefully be able to take him to promo's on a halter. He should draw some attention for sure.

Now then, back to business. Have you ever had life get in the way of perfectly good intentions? We've been so busy with the business and everything else in our lives we haven't had time to get the corral system built and here it is the end of Sept. Do you remember when summer vacation from school seemed like an eternity? Now the whole summer is gone in the blink of an eye. Wow. We're going to have to get the cattle moved to my land pronto, won't have to time do much in terms of handling. Our current plan is to load them up, we have 3 big Goosenecks ready to go, and then we were thinking about unloading them through the squeeze chute so that we can worm them, vaccinate the calves, band the bulls, and tag them all. Our hopes are that it won't be traumatic enough to imprint bad memories on them for the chute. Then build a system on my land, move the chute to that, and start conditioning them to use it the way we'd discussed. Does that raise any huge red flags to you all?

 

[texasjohn]

You're doing what you need to do, given the time and resources that you have... as all cowmen do.. and getting started is really tough... you need to get everything done all at once!

My son and his wife just got back from a vacation trip to China, Mongolia and Russia... celebrating her completion of medical school.. now a practicing nephrologist! In Mongolia, he rode a horse for hours across the stepps, like the Great Kahn... they eat meat there.... he has a photo of a sign saying, "meat is for men, grass is for animals!" I, too, know the granola crowd.

You will settle on steers.. bulls too hard to handle, injure themselves, etc.
I studied percentages such as you quote (for slaughter and many other things) for a long time. My conclusion is that, unless you are dealing with hundreds of animals, your management practices matter much more than the find tuning things you can do. For example, bull breeding observation, fertility testing and cow palpating will raise the % of calves raised better than any other measure... assuming that you sell the cows that are open/slow breeders.

You want mountain oysters? Raise goats... tasty tidbits!

I repeat, a BULL with amazing horns has questionable hormones working for him... a real bull's horns will be very large at the base and somewhat stubby. Steer horns are smaller at the base and thinner and grow longer/faster.

It's good you now have a gentle mascot... do your best to keep him that way... although at this point in his life, he is well accustomed to humans and unless teased, tormented and mishandled (beware, this happens much more than you think if you start taking him on "show off" trips.... dumb city folks love to do strange things when around animals) he will stay docile. Warning... learn now how to tie a lead (use nylon, not leather or fancy stuff) off very tightly... and preferably place the animal in a portable pen. Use locks! For fun, people will unsnap leads, open gates and either walk into the pen to pet the critter, or let it "fly and be free!" Make, now, a sign that explains that bad things can happen and the public is now warned... to get an idea, visit a horse event of some kind... notice the signs they have posted all around indicating that the event is dangerous and they don't have liability. Somenting like:

AN EQUINE PROFESSIONAL IS NOT LIABLE FOR AN INJUJRY TO OR THE DEATH OF A PARTICIPANT IN AN EQUINE ACTIVITY RESULTING FROM AN INHERENT RISK OF AN EQUINE ACTIVITY

I just discovered these folks make signs, know nothing about them.

Here is an intersting discussion re signage requirements from legal position, re horses

Re your plan to work stuff straight from the trailer..no problem... imprinting will not be a big problem. all gets mushed together with the experience of round up, trailering, etc...

Biggest problem is I don't understand how you are going to unload from gooseneck directly into squeeze chute. My 24 ft cattle trailer has partitions, making three 8 ft. compartments. I assume your goosenecks are somewhat similar. I see no way other than to unload one trailer segment... say 4 cows to 8 smaller animals at a time...into some sort of small holding pen from which you will press them singly into the squeeze chute. I fear if you don't have at least the rudimentary pen-to-squeeze chute setup that somebody will get hurt. Figure out how to unload the trailer without you personally having to crawl in there with those heavy bodies and horns...

 

[Spiveyman]

Yeah, we're trying to make everything happen and not mess up too big along the way.

I didn't even know what a nephrologist is, had to look it up. Wow. Impressive. Interesting vacation too. We went to Gatlinberg.

I think in general you are correct about bulls & horns, however there are some producers that have managed to bring along some lines that have great weight gain and horn. I met a guy last year who has an amazing operation in OH, runs about 5,000 acres. He has either one of the only or perhaps THE only bull in the breed to go over 2,000 lbs and 70 inches of horn, named Winchester. That's an amazing beast. He's sired some awesome animals too. I guess the point is selectively breeding to over time develop animals with outstanding horn without compromising other positive traits. Perhaps you always compromise other traits, but the challenge is what we enjoy. It'll be a while before that really matters to us. For now, we sell beef, and that's what will pay the bills.

I have thought about many of those things when it comes to bringing a live animal to a grocery store parking lot. It's gonna take a whole lot of convincing before I'll agree that he's ready, and there will be serious security when we do. I don't even want to come close to a lawsuit. Good idea about the signs too.

You are right on with your comments/questions around working through the chute direct from the trailer. We have one with a sliding gate that will work fine (built into the big gate on the back of the trailer). We use this one at the slaughter house because we can slide it open and let one animal out and then slide it closed to cover its retreat so that it can't get back on the trailer. Anyway the other two are just regular Goosenecks, one about 24 ft (my papaw's), the other about 32? ish feet (my tenant farmer's). Both have double swinging gates on the rear with cut gates up in trailer. I figure we'll have to have some panels set up and let 1/3 of the cattle off the trailer at a time, then work them one at a time through the Dube chute. Certainly not ideal. We'll try it with the smaller calves and see how it works before we pull the bigger bulls through, but for sure we won't be putting ourselves in between the animals and the pen/gate/chute. We can always gather them back up and try it the right way as long as we are still breathing!

 

[texasjohn]

Yep, I found Winchester here. I recognize the management symptom from observing the same thing in other breeds.... big bull..extremes sell, high advertising budget, high semen demand/price ($50), ooops.... can't meet demand...low quality.... OK... take him to Colorado in the summer to continue collecting where it is cold and maybe quality will be OK... then maybe back to Texas when it gets too cold in CO... leave him at a vet the rest of his life and collect, collect, collect.

I know it is sacriledge, but I kinda suspect that there is a correlation between his large size, horns and lower fertility..... the only way I'd become convinced otherwise would to myself observe the quantiy and quality, via objective counting and microscope measures... and compare to moderate bulls maintained in lower lower body condition count... (which also reduces fertility)... but, that's just me...

That said, I'm sure that he's a real money maker for some folks.... such extreme, first-in-the-breed on some measure bulls always are. There was a Hereford bull that was a supreme show winner... they bred him very, very extensively... then discovered that he passed on the dwarfism gene... almost destroyed that breed. Dwarfism still haunts the hereford breed today.

Here is an interesting story you might like re an old line cowboy and his lifetime of cow experience.

And, here also is another facinating story.... well worth a read!

Now, don't be confused, I'm not saying that dwarfism in herefords and long horned/big body longhorns are necessarily related. My point is that a focus on selecting for extremes and concentrating this via use of AI, transplants, line breeding, etc. often produces short term profits at the expense of later disasterous genetic discoveries.

 

[Spiveyman]

Yep, that's the Winchester I was talking about. Just curious, but where did you find the info about low fertility? I don't understand that one. He's been in service at DCCI for many years and has many many many progeny. I saw him this spring before they sold him, and have seen many of his sons and daughters. I guess they wouldn't advertise low fertility, but just the same there seem to be tons of animals there with his blood in them. They tend to be very good for the beef side of the business, good average daily gains and such.

Admittedly, I'm way over my head in talking about the science of this with you, especially since that's not my animal. I think you do make some really good points about breeding for freaks. Not a good long term game plan. Hadn't really thought about the affect on the breed. Longhorns developed over time into what they were for a reason, an optimal set of characteristics given the genes available to the herds. When we mess with that too much we get outside of the beauty of what nature preserved in the animals in the first place. Point well taken. Very interesting reading in those articles. I'd never heard about that. The guy who run's cattle on my place right now has one hereford cow that is really short. Kind of favors some of the ones in that one article. Kind of freaky if you ask me. I'm fine sticking to good but not extreme genes in the animals we select.

 

[texasjohn]

Jan Bonsma makes the point about the relationship between fertility and bull horn growth and body size in his book. I have a copy at home...

Perhaps EasyEd with his scholarly ties might be able to elucidate us on this topic from his perspective.

I also just now located this study... but it requires access beyond what I have... so I can't see the conclusions, only that horn characteristics and growth in females has been a topic of study.

This is a broad summary of beef breeding considerations although not touching this topic.

 

[Spiveyman]

Gotcha! Yes, I have had confirmed from several breeders that there does tend to be a correlation. Most say that the momma's with the best horns typically are not their greatest milk producers. They will be sufficient, but milk production isn't as strong as others. With bulls I have not heard anything about fertility, and haven't read that book, but I can't see a breeder telling me not to buy his big horned bulls because they are less fertile. One thing we have observed though is that the bulls with more muscle tend not to have the greatest horns and vice versa. We bought some feeders from a guy who typically feeds his bulls grain for shows. They are generally pretty big animals, with less than impressive horn. We expected the feeders we bought to have similar traits, but we're feeding grass, and sadly there's not that much grass on my partners farm. We've also been giving Cargil minerals at will. Those bulls are healthy, not skinny, but certainly not fat like the bulls they came from. However these sucker's horns are growing like crazy. We figure since they aren't able to put on as much weight in our light fields these days and since they are getting a good mineral supply that they are simply putting on more horn than muscle. Not ideal for us, but we'll get our fields situated so that we aren't this low on grass in the years to come.

I'll check out those other links now...

 

[texasjohn]

The conclusion, clear to me although either not admitted, understood, agreed to or known by some others I have talked to, is that a focus on one extreme extracts a price elsewhere in the biological continum. And those least likely to analyze or even countenance the idea are those who are most focused on one visual, easily measured physical characteristic. I have seen this in a focus on frame score, cannon bone size, etc.

I suspect you are correct re relationship between horns and minerals... the folks seeking to get big bucks for the "big bucks" make sure that there is a proper and plentiful mineral supplement available at all times.

I have not studied longhorns, but the correlation you have personally observed between muscle (masculinity as long as it is not double muscleing) and horn growth is interesting. My opinion would be that a well balanced longhorn bull would have hormones aimed at building sufficient (not extravagant) horns sufficient for self protection and strong muscle for strength in winning the battle of the bulls for breeding rights.... according to the law of the open range.

You are already experiencing that grain fed animals/genetics will not produce such large frame animals as fast when switched to grass. This is true, regardless of breed.

 

[Spiveyman]

You are already experiencing that grain fed animals/genetics will not produce such large frame animals as fast when switched to grass. This is true, regardless of breed.

Could you explain this a bit? Are you referring to simply the difference between grain fed & grass fed diets on the frame development, or are you talking about pulling animals from stock that has been largely developed on grain only, (i.e. several generations of show bulls that have been on feed exclusively) and then putting those calves on grass?

I never really thought about the potential effect on the genetics of pulling animals from stock that has been on grain for so many generations. Sooooo much to learn...

Early on we bought several animals from a guy who raises them for show. They are put on feed as soon as they are weaned, he works with them, shows them, and those that he doesn't sell for high dollars we'd buy for beef. Most were 1,300 - 1,700 lbs, less than two years old. We also bought a couple trailer loads of feeder calves that we dumped on our grass. His "big" bulls had tons of meat, but were pretty small as far as horn goes. This was the first commercial slaughter that we did. You know how some people frame the first dollar that the company makes, well...


You can see his horns were not that impressive at 2 years-ish old, 1,480 lbs when we bought him. Also, that's not exactly what he looked like, that's a steer mold, I guess they don't sell bull molds for longhorns where my taxidermist shops. The calves we bought from that guy are doing great, but like I mentioned the horns seem to be growing much faster on our place (grass/minerals) than on his (show feed/some grass). I wouldn't care too much since those calves will be heading for the freezer some time next year, but we did buy one registered bull calf that we have hopes to breed with. We are as thrilled as you can be with a non-proven bull at this point. Which is to say he's got everything in appearance/disposition that we want. He just has to prove himself when we get some heifers.