Horns, Frames, and Genetics
With California Ag Today, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
Forget planes, trains, and automobiles. Today we’re discussing horns, frames, and genetics. More specifically, what’s the relation between these variables in your calves and what the cattle buyer is willing to pay.
Analyzing data from Superior Livestock Auction results in conjunction with Kansas State University, here’s Dr. John Hutcheson, director of cattle technical services at Merck Animal Health…
“Year after year after year, these buyers pay more for not having horns, and that's thinking of the long term. These things are going down. They're going to produce leather, and they're going to produce food, and so that's one of the things. The other thing is, as cattle producers and feedlots through the production phase, we keep adding more weight and more weight and more weight and get these cattle bigger and bigger and producing more beef per acre, so to speak. And so they want medium frame, large frame calves. Those bring back quite a bit of value to these calves. The other thing is using good genetics. On the Superior Sale, we have access to the data, and they have a program that looks at Superior Genetics, and these are if you purchase bulls that have known genetics that are recognized by buyers of these calves, then you get a nice bump in value as well.”
Tomorrow, is the increase in weight worth the cost of an implant? We’ll see what the data says right here on the Ag Information Network.
