3-25 IAN Cross-breeding .doc

  CURRENT MARKET STRUCTURE FAVORS CROSSBREEDING FOR COW-CALF PRODUCERS

The American Hereford Association has released the results of a three-year, real-world commercial project comparing offspring by Hereford and Angus bulls when crossed on Angus-based cows.  Dave Daley, a University Associate Dean and Farm Administrator - led the research project. He says there’s been a shift in the beef industry back to straight breeding. This research allowed Daley to look into the value of crossbreeding in a practical way - conducting a controlled   crossbreeding system, comparing progeny sired by Hereford and Angus bulls, under commercial conditions, emphasizing economic differences at the ranch, feedlot and packing plant.

“The history of cross breeding tells us we need to keep a cross bred cow. The value she gives back in terms of reproductive  fitness and longevity, all the things she does give us in long term return is really critical to the commercial cow-calf producer but as we increasingly went to straight breds we started to lose that.

Cross bred cattle have an advantage in feed efficiency and particularly in cost of gain. Put those together it gave us a net advantage in the feed lot and cow-calf phase even in direct hypered vigor and that would be the cross bred calf carried through the feed lot phase. What the study didn’t tell us, although we have some preliminary data, is the long term value of that cross bred cow because she’s gonna last longer in your cow herd.