01/26/09 DNA and bulls

As the New Year continues, many cattle producers consider the purchase of a new bull as opposed to breeding with older bulls to take advantage of new genetics for the breeding cycle. Knowing that calving season is in the spring, winter is the optimal time to be looking for bulls given that shows are taking place in late January and into February and March. Many producers keep breeding the same old bulls but Rick Stott, Executive Vice President for beef producer AgriBeef, discusses reasons for changing bull DNA: "Ranchers find a need in their herd to infuse a different type of genetic into their herd so they go and buy a bull that they can use in their breeding in the springtime, for example, if a cattleman wants to improve the weaning weight of his herd then he'll go out and buy a bull that has the propensity to increase the weaning weights for his calves that that bull is bred for. If he wants to increase the marbling, he'll buy a bull with a higher, what they call, EPD's for marbling. All of this allows for ranchers to improve the quality of the herds in different aspects. We have a ranch called Double R Ranch up in Loomis, WA and those bulls are known for their high quality marbling. We know calves that are produced from our bulls will produce 80% choice or better out of all of the calf productions. The average in the U.S. is somewhere in the 55%-60% range."