Connecting the Dots to Improve Beef Quality
By Caitlin Richards
It takes a combination of factors to improve beef quality in any given ranching operation and the beef industry as a whole, largely due to the broad variability in animal genetics and management approaches. Andy Herring, Ph.D., animal science professor at Texas A&M University, suggests that because of this variation one-size-fits-all production programs don’t work.
“If we have a set of cattle and we know nothing about their background, we’ve got all of these potential differences,” Herring says. “They are either going to pleasantly surprise us or they will disappoint us. We are then going to try to make all cattle do all things. That’s not going to be efficient.”
The variability in the industry and your own operation is composed of aspects both in and out of your control. Specifically, there are genetic and non-genetic factors.
Anything related to management or the natural environment would be considered non-genetic. Genetic aspects are the factors like breeds, sires and individual differences within families. For each of these non-genetic and genetic traits, numerous differences occur, resulting in broad variability.
“You’ve got differences between different breeds, between individuals, herds and even offspring,” Herring says. “Then on the non-genetic side, it includes how people handle cattle differently, like how much or how little supplemental feed they provide, health management, and weather conditions, like how much it rained.”
For the industry and individual operations to improve beef quality, all of these variables need to be considered. The first thing Herring suggests is to be able to trace cattle through the system.
“Our industry by nature is really segmented,” Herring said. “We’ve got the cow-calf segment where the vast majority [of ranchers] sell the calves close to weaning time. A lot of producers do not know what happens to those calves or how they perform.”
When the ownership of calves past weaning changes, some of those calves go into stocker grazing programs or some go straight to a feedyard, and then ultimately to a packing plant.
“If there is a way to have more traceability throughout the system, we can have more predictability,” Herring says. “We can have more precise marketing and management of animals that are geared to different things.”
Say a producer has a set of cattle with superior marbling genetics that will have good quality grades at harvest. The producer could decide to keep them on feed a little longer to allow them to express that potential; therefore, getting the most out of the cattle and reaping the rewards of effective management.
On the other hand, say a producer has a set of cattle they know will not have high-quality grades. Those cattle could be fed for a shorter amount of time and then marketed for a lean beef program. This could efficiently match management to genetic potential.
If cattle don’t have the genetic potential to grade, no matter how long the producer feeds them they are not going to grade well. The producer will then be worse off financially because they managed the cattle the same way by putting in the same input cost without increasing their value.
“If you have a way to know what their real background is and then try to figure out what their potential is,” Herring says, “you can better manage your operation with different management protocols.”
Follow your own cattle
Ranchers can manage industry variability by taking a deeper look at their herd and management practices. Herring suggests that the easiest thing a producer can do is find out how their cattle fit into different programs.
“If they have never tracked their cattle after weaning time,” Herring said, “they could take a small set of calves and retain ownership through a grazing program or a custom feeding program to see how the cattle do from a health and a gain standpoint.”
Starting with retaining a small set of calves allows producers to gain some information and insight into their herd and evaluate management practices. To take it even further, Herring says producers could work with a university, breed association, feedlot or another group to get some carcass data back.
“There are a lot of things that people do right at the ranch to produce valuable beef carcasses, but most of these cattle are sold as weaned calves,” Herring says. “They can get more value for those cattle if they market them through a program and retain ownership.”
Herring also noted that if calf and feed prices are high, then retaining ownership might not always work from an economic standpoint. There are also some cattle that may seem valuable as calves but they could have below average feedyard performance. It comes down to knowing the potential of the cattle and having a plan for how to market them.
By taking a deeper look at their herd, producers can ultimately maximize profits and improve overall beef quality at the same time. A solid herd management foundation filled with adequate nutrition and general health programs puts producers on the right track.
Producers should also have a good grasp of the profit or loss they are making per cow per year. There can be huge differences in profit even when the genetics are the same. Documenting total annual operating costs on a per animal basis can help producers determine their level of performance.
After establishing a solid foundation, producers can examine the genetic background of each head to determine the best marketing program for their herd. Herring emphasizes the importance of knowing which calf came from which sire and what type of calves those sires produce. He explains that this will then allow producers to better manage the herd and market them the best way possible.
“It is easier said than done,” Herring said. “Producers are usually selling calves at weaning time to pay the bills. We don’t know anything about the genetic background of a lot of cattle going through the system.”
Producers may know basic phenotype information such as color, muscle structure and how much ear they have. For anything beyond that, there is a lack of information, which contributes to the overall variability of the industry.
“We really aren’t capitalizing on the information that is out there if we can’t connect the dots,” Herring says. “If producers know what the potential is for their cattle in the system, it just gives them more marketing opportunities and more chances to add value if they are doing things right.”
Taking the time to connect the dots from your herd to the market is even more helpful with a volatile market like the cattle market. Producers can become more stable in their marketing decisions to help smooth out the market’s volatility.
This point of view is different from most one-size-fits-all approaches. From Herring’s research at Texas A&M University, he has discovered that there is more to the traditional way of thinking when breeding cattle.
“We just think that if cattle are half-Angus, half-Charolais, then they are all the same,” Herring says, “but sometimes it depends on how they are made.”
Depending on how those cattle were bred, Herring explains, there will be differences in performance and that’s not a traditional way of thinking. His research is fine-tuning the industry to be more specific in the mass variability.
“There are a lot of people who think about the variability and say there is too much because we’ve got all of this variation,” Herring says. “Well, too much variability, if you know about it, is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing if you know how to use it.”
If everybody had the same type of cattle being raised in the same type of environmental conditions with the same growth rate and resulting in the same type of carcass, then everybody would manage everything the same. But that’s not the case.
“What I have seen over the years,” Herring says, “is that people who are really successful managers don’t try to do things across the board verbatim with what the experts say. They take bits and pieces and put it together and figure out what works for their individual scenario.”
The tough part for producers is taking the bits and pieces out there and putting the puzzle together for their operation. The important thing to remember is that it isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach because the market is anything but uniform.
“Producers can better match up what their potential is on their cattle,” Herring says, ”rather than just trying to market everything on the average by connecting the dots.” ❚
“Improve Quality with Genetics” is excerpted from the March 2017 issue of The Cattleman magazine.