The cattle in the maze of pens at the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo are all gussied up: clipped, washed, blow-dried, ready to wow ’em in the auction barn.
The true cattle connoisseur, though, knows that beauty isn’t in the eye of the beholder – it’s in the numbers recorded on small placards hanging in the pen and in three-ring binders: pedigree, birth weight, muscle-to-fat ratio, offspring’s statistics.
Genetic tracking is nothing new in the cattle industry, but computers have revolutionized the field.
“We took 250 years of cattle breeding, and in the last 10 to 15 years, we have really accelerated,” said Roy Wallace of Select Sires Inc., an Ohio-based federation of cooperatives that supplies semen for the beef and dairy industries.
“There were the models written, but we didn’t have computer power to run the dang thing,” he said. “Now, there’s like 30- some traits in there that you can select.”
Needs vary, depending on the operations and the market.
A bull in a pen of Herefords shown by Colorado State University students would appeal to some because, based on family history, it’s likely to sire daughters that would produce a lot of milk.
“Anywhere there’s abundant resources and lots of rain, that makes sense,” said Tom Field, CSU animal sciences professor. “But milk production takes a lot of energy and a lot nutrients, so if they’re in a more limited environment, that may not be quite as appropriate.”
The numbers on two other bulls in the same pen show they likely would have low-milk- producing offspring.
“We use DNA markers to try and help us understand which animals have the inherent abilities to produce a tender product or to stay healthy in certain environments,” Field said.
CSU and other universities work in tandem with the livestock industry to breed and raise the kind of cattle that produce beef that people will buy in supermarkets or high-dollar restaurants. The goal might be beef that’s lean or marbled with fat for taste.
The consumer is on the minds of John Schurr and his family, who raise Angus and Charolais cattle near North Platte, Neb.
The Schurrs began using ultrasound more than 20 years ago to determine whether their animals were producing the beef the public wants, Schurr said.
Before, all they could do was examine the carcass after slaughter to test whether their breeding program was working. Ultrasound allows cattle producers to assess a living animal’s muscularity, fat and other traits, Field said.
The Schurrs also use embryo transfer, in which a cow with the desired qualities is given a drug to produce several eggs during ovulation. All the eggs are fertilized via artificial insemination and implanted in other cows.
Cows have only one calf a year, so embryo transfer spreads the superior cow’s genetics more quickly.
“I think people don’t understand the technology we do use. It’s not just throwing the bull out with the cows,” said Ryan Schurr, one of Schurr’s sons.
