REGINA – A Limousin bred steer and heifer aced the Canadian Western Agribition carcass competition for the 26th consecutive year.
For the second year in a row, Manitoba cattle producer Andy Shewchuk of Binscarth entered this year’s champions.
Canadian Limousin Association president Martin Bohrson of Hanley, Sask., was beaming over the results for his breed that has always promoted itself as the ideal carcass type. In Bohrson’s opinion, finding serious commercial producers with the same beliefs is partly behind the year-by-year success of Limousin steers at Agribition. Raising cattle for beef quality has made Shewchuk successful.
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“He selects herd sires specifically for top quality carcasses,” said Bohrson.
As ultrasound technology has improved, more people are using it to detect those elusive better-eating-beef qualities in live animals.
While seedstock producers have worked hard over the years to develop high-yielding, efficient and prolific bulls, the bottom line is measured by the number of pounds produced of high-quality beef.
“This is the dollars and cents to the beef business,” said Bohrson.
“We have a number of breeders and commercial producers who are really committed to entering and winning here,” he said.
They take the time and evaluate the quality of bulls and pursue carcass merit traits that are highly heritable.
“They select bulls that will sire tremendous carcass animals.”
The Limousin association is gathering data on carcass merit and working with feedlots and packers to return information on how well large groups of animals perform.
In addition, the association is involved in a carcass merit program known as the Beef Alliance along with the Charolais, Hereford and Simmental associations. The alliance hopes to identify bulls of all the breeds that sire high-quality commercial animals for the better beef market.
“We are trying to develop some common ground and gather information. Our commercial buyers are hungry for information,” he said.”People think we are all in competition with each other, but we’re not. We’re all in this together.”
The Agribition competition involves a point system to determine quality. Canadian meat graders who do not know the breed of animal on the hook make the selections.
There were 25 heifers and 40 steers entered.Carcasses were awarded points for quality grade, loin eye area, fat colour and distribution, cutability, carcass weight, meat colour and level of marbling. Cattle come in before Agribition starts and are killed in Moose Jaw.
The carcasses are later sold at auction and the meat is donated to local food banks.
