Meat+Poultry - October 2022 - 86

FROM THE CORRAL
Breeding
solutions
Fed cattle weights are trending toward
being super heavy. Some of these
animals are so wide that they are
getting stuck in chutes and restrainers.
Widening some of this equipment to
accommodate these wide cattle will
be expensive. The huge cost is due to
two factors - skyrocketing steel prices
and a shortage of skilled welders and
fabricators to build new equipment.
Many plants no longer have in-house
ability to build large equipment.
Unfortunately, many in-house shop
facilities were closed down years ago.
Management decided that outsourcing
new equipment was cheaper. Today
many have learned that this may have
been a bad decision.
There is another solution to the
huge, wide, fat steer problem and
that is breeding smaller cattle. These
animals will fit in existing equipment
and have meat quality that consumers
want. Today, huge Angus or Anguscross
animals are profitable because
the consumer really likes Prime beef.
Prime has become popular among
today's shoppers and diners. Smaller
cattle can be developed that will grade
Prime at a lower finished body weight.
A brief review of cattle breeding
history will provide some insights.
In the 1970s, when I first started
my career, Angus and Hereford cattle
would grade Prime at much lower
weights. Many of these cattle had
really heavy external body fat that
was detrimental to yield grades. Due
to consumer demand at that time for
leaner beef, breeders responded by
breeding a taller, leaner animal that
would grade Choice. These cattle were
developed during the late 1970s and
1980s. To make this type of cattle grade
Prime often requires much higher
finished weights.
CHANGING BREEDING
IS A WIN-WIN
Another problem with these huge
fed steers is that they have huge
sisters, who are the mother cows out
on the range. Drought has made it
more difficult for ranchers to feed
large cows in the winter. Feeding hay
when there is snow on the ground
is expensive.
I recently presented at a Beef
Quality Assurance workshop in
Burlington, Colo. This provided an
opportunity for me to talk to many
ranchers in eastern Colorado. I also
got to see a lot of cattle when I drove
for two hours between Denver and
Burlington. Ranchers are switching
to smaller cows that will be easier to
feed in the winter. Some of them are
now raising Red Angus because they
are smaller. While driving through
over 100 miles of pastures, I saw many
red cattle.
The bottom line is that large
cows do not work in arid Western
rangeland. In the 1970s, when I lived
in Arizona, our county agent told
ranchers that there were " not enough
groceries in the desert to feed large
cows. " He said this when the first huge
Charolais and Chianina cattle were
imported from Europe. The Hereford
cattle that ranchers were successfully
raising on the high desert land were
much smaller.
The solution is to breed a smaller
animal that will finish to a Prime
grade at a lighter weight. That will
also provide a cow that a rancher will
have to feed less hay to in the winter.
To do this may require using either
old Angus and Hereford genetics from
the 1980s or using more Wagyu. The
leaner, taller beef cattle that were
developed in the 1980s are the wrong
animals to use for producing Primegrade
cattle today.
TEMPLE GRANDIN | meatpoult r y@sos land.com
Today, huge Angus or Angus-cross
animals are profitable because the
consumer really likes Prime beef.
86 MEAT+POULTRY | 10.22 | www.meatpoultry.com
budogosh - stock.adobe.com; Rosalie Winard
http://meatpoultry@sosland.com http://www.meatpoultry.com
Meat+Poultry - October 2022

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