When it comes to growing better beef, researchers, packers and feedlots know it all starts with the people who are raising the cattle.
Top producers know their animals. They keep records and they use tools like artificial insemination from proven bulls to improve their herds.
“Breed didn’t matter a damn. The breeder matters,” said Dave Moss of Western Feedlots.
For members of the Canadian Charolais Association, generations of extensive records on their purebred stock helps them determine how much quality is determined by genetics and how much is good management.
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The value of these programs was discussed at the association’s recent annual meeting.
Researcher Bob Kemp told the association its consumer to conception program and other records analyzing herd performance are valuable data.
Agriculture Canada’s Lethbridge Research Centre maintains an 800 head Angus cow herd and is building a 200 head Charolais herd for genetic research, carcass quality, terminal sire traits and maternal qualities, said Kemp.
The Angus herd has been closed for 20 years and there is a good set of historical data to help evaluate growth, carcass merit and other traits.
Data from the Charolais herd includes fertility, birth weights, calving ease and calf survival over the long term.
Some of that research is being extended into a new field of study, composition of gain, which measures how much fat is gained in relation to lean meat.
All this information has a practical purpose.
Cows produce half the quality of a slaughter calf. Hands-on involvement and diligent record keeping helps producers fit in well with value-based marketing systems, such as that offered by Western Feedlots for the last two years.
Canada’s largest custom lot, Western has conducted studies to improve its marketing formula.
If animals fit within the parameters of a quality grid, the feedlot can sell them for higher prices and then it shares the money with the person who sold it the cattle.
They know breeders can repeat the performance so the feedlot wants to find those producers, said Moss.
Working with Cargill Foods at High River, Alta., participants selling in the value-based program receive reports on how individual animals rated after slaughter. If they are better than average according to Western’s grid system, they receive a premium price based on grade, weights and quality grades.
The feedlot deals with Cargill because that company will offer a premium on higher grading carcasses.
Since the program started two years ago, Western has run some of its own trials.
It looked at 22 herds and breed types, weaning weights, frame size and 90-day feedlot weights and carcass merit.
Its research showed that visual appraisal of live cattle with respect to dressing percentage, grade and yield didn’t correlate with what was under the hide.
“We thought we could look at cattle and make a decision. Optics are not reality. We are not as good as we think we are in looking at cattle,” Moss said.
At its Alberta lots in Strathmore, Mossleigh and High River, these discoveries made the company reassess its feeding programs and change implant strategies.
It believes animals have a certain genetic propensity to add marbling to meat. The animal can be fed to its potential but the carcass may not have the genetic ability to produce marbling.
“Extra days on feed don’t add marbling,” said Moss.
Western supports the development of tenderness grades along with quality grades to pay producers more money. It believes this could be accomplished with more improvements in computerized grading.
