Cattle DNA

Beef cattle have been judged by humans for year, but a new judge may start making some selections. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be right back after a quick break to tell you about this new critic. Ever since man decided cows needed to be better in his eyes there has been a selection process and judge to carry out the evaluation and make a final decision. Although eye-appeal is a major factor in the kind of cattle ranchers like to have in their herds, selecting cattle on eye-appeal only did not work out so good for the industry. Producers bought descendants of show-ring winners that couldn't handle the rigors of life on the range much less produce a calf that weighted any more than are African Dik-Dik gazelle. The real progress came when cattle were evaluated on their actual performance with the first assessment of rate of gain, feed efficiency, and weight per day of age. These qualities could be linked to different degrees of hereditability and improvement was made by selecting sires carrying these traits. Eventually, milking ability of dams, birth weights and carcass quality was tested and rated. Ultra sound became a big help to read what was under the hide of a live animal and let producers select animals that would improve defects in the carcasses their herd produced. Now cattle selection goes even deeper - a group of scientists have sequenced the bovine genome. What will this mean to the beef industry as far as selection of animals for future generations? Well, I'll answer that question tomorrow. I'm Jeff Keane