Cattle.com

Blog Archive June 2010

June Cattle Forum Index

  1. Ranchers.net 41.45%
  2. Cattle-Today 25.79%
  3. Steerplanet 24.83%
  4. Advantage Cattle Services 6.75%
  5. Clubcalves 0.60%
  6. 5BarX 0.35%
  7. Breedersworld 0.18%
  8. EDJE 0.05%

Summer is here.  Due to seasonal trends, forum activity overall was down 17.6% to 439 posts per day.  It’s similar to the 14.8% drop of June 2009 vs May 2009. 

Breedersworld recorded another record low posting level at 1.39 posts per day.  It was doing 5.79 posts per day a year ago and over 30 in the Fall of 08 when we started the index.

On a share basis Steerplanet, Cattle Today, and Advantege Cattle Services were up.  Ranchers.net was down.  24.83% is the record high for Steerplanet since the index has included all of the current forums.

On a side note, the ‘conspiracy theory guy’ on Steerplanet has told me not to reply to any of his threads from here on out.  From what I understand it has something to do with the fluoride in the water I drink.  Not kidding.


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It just doesn't work out as planned sometimes...

We bought four heifers at the 09 Cream of the Crop sale.  If you put the four in a livestock judging class you’d rank them 1-2-3-4 with cuts of 5-2-7.  Yes, seven, there was not doubt whatsoever which heifer was the best of the group but the bottom heifer was blatantly obvious.  I was openly apologizing to my father and brother for buying heifer #4, it was an obvious mistake. 

If you don’t know what that seven means you are in luck, Livestockjudging.com will launch July 6th and you can learn there.

Well in a remarkable display of what I know…

Heifer #1 – Just watched her first calf get culled and go through the auction barn for $1/lb.

Heifer #4 – Just had her first calf take 3rd overall out of right at 150 steers in a prospect show.


June Cattle Site Visitor Report

  1. Cattle Today Sites 23.72% (2)
  2. Beefmagazine.com 15.99% (3)
  3. CattleNetwork.com 15.60% (1)
  4. Cattlerange.com 10.77%
  5. Cattle.com 10.71%
  6. Showsteers.com 6.86%
  7. Steerplanet.com 4.62% (9)
  8. Drovers.com 4.05% (7)
  9. Cattlepages.com 2.93% (nr)
  10. Clubcalves.com 1.32% (8)

Cattlegrower.com dropped out of the top ten.

It's earlier this month because the folks over at Compete got their data out faster.

Full Ranking Here


Screw Claw

We bought a bull last fall for use on American cows purely for terminal show steers.  All of our other bulls are pretty strong maternally, we just needed a bull that would add bone and power to commercial American females.  He’s actually a PHA carrier (not the bull mentioned here, but yes, I thought he had the PHA phenotype from when I saw him) and so we already knew he’s terminal.

He was sound as could be at the sale.  We watched his feet closely to make sure he was correct.  Everyone who saw him back home was impressed by how well he moved and how sound he was for such a muscular, big boned bull.  He was described as “extra sound in his structure” in the catalog.  Honestly, the only reason we got him was his extra skin (which is a plus for what we do), his lack of neck extension, and his PHA status.

Well, he came out of the pasture with a screw claw this spring.

For the record, if I were a show jock I wouldn't mention the above.  I just want you to realize how honest a guy you have the opportunity to listen to here.  Sometimes it feels like you take me for granted and don't appreciate me like you did when we first met.

Since then I’ve been trying to find out everything I can about screw claw.  Like a lot of things, everyone seems to know exactly how it works but virtually nobody agrees with each other.  Rather than pretending I can make any sense of it all, here's everything I've heard/read...

Source – First clubby expert

It’s an autosomal recessive trait that has a tendency to come up in Heat Wave lines (the bull is a grandson).  There are very popular club calf bulls with it.

Source – Second clubby expert

Sometimes it will happen but he’s not sure what the genetic process is on it.  It won’t show up in the steers since they are typically done by the time they would display it.  He uses bulls with it and he just manages it by trimming the hooves of the bull once or twice a year.

Source – First veterinarian

It’s always passed on and any bull with it should be condemned.

Source – Second veterinarian.

He agrees it’s an autosomal recessive trait.  He refuses to pass bulls on breeding soundness exams if they have it but wouldn’t necessarily condemn a bull with it.  The only way he’d recommend using a screw claw bull is if it is for a strictly terminal operation where you don’t keep the replacement heifers.

He’s seen entire herds destroyed by breeders who refused to face the facts and kept everything out of the bulls.  When asked about breeds that he’s seen it in he said “Maine, a little bit in Beefmaster, Simmental, Simmental, Simmental, and SIMMENTAL” and I don't think I can justly convey the emphasis he put on that last "Simmental".

He claims his belief of the autosomal recessive nature theory resulted from a research paper but didn’t remember where it came from (if you know what he was talking about, PLEASE let me know).  He laughed when I asked him about the Huang Shanks paper mentioned below.

Source – Blackewlls’ Five-Minute Veterinary Consult:Ruminant, 2008

“The conformation of cattle seems to predispose some beef cattle to this disorder.  Affected beef cattle are usually heavy muscled with a wide rump.”

“Aggressive corrective hoof trimming” may be considered for growing animals.  It “may have a genetic component.”

Source – “Within herd estimates of heritabilities for six hoof characteristics and impact of dispersion of discrete severity scores on estimates” – Y.C. Huang and R.D. Shanks, 1995

Abstract Here

The heritability of corkscrew claw was calculated to be .05 which is just about as low a heritability as you can get.

“Low heritabilities with a relatively large proportion of permanent environmental variance to additive genetic variance implied that response to selection for a single score of corkscrew claw, interdigital dermatitis and sole ulcers would be small.”

“Large proportions of environmental variances were consistent with two hypotheses: (1) corkscrew claw may be influenced by other diseases or inappropriate hoof care…”

So what does all of that mean?  Most likely it means somebody will come along and leave a comment that all of the sources are wrong and that they’re the one who really knows how it works.  Bottom line, I like to be all ears on stuff like this but the more people/sources I listen to, the less I think I’ve learned.

p.s. Picture of a corkscrew claw. We had the bull mentioned above corrected of I'd post a pic of it.


World Cup

If you wondered, this is what Cattle.com would look like if you were reading it from the stands at the World Cup...

Cattle.com World Cup Version


What is a Fakeford?

After this thread showed up in my Google Alerts yesterday I realized I should have explained this term before using it.

The term Fakeford is the term I use to describe Hereford marked cattle that are not actually Herefords.  I don’t pretend that I coined it and I have no clue who did. 

In Texas, with the visual classification system, Fakefords have become popular for the production of show steers.  You can find the guidelines for classification of Hereford steers in this document put out by the AgriLIFE (that term is the only thing about A&M that disappoints me more than the final results of the conference realignment stuff) Extension System.

How often are steers in the Hereford classes Fakefords rather than truly Hereford calves?  I'd dare to say that for the placing steers at the majors, purebred Hereford steers are at most rare.  The Reserve Grand steer at Fort Worth that had won the Hereford breed was sired by a Hereford but was a Fakeford through its dam.

At one time I referred to them as Cartmans after the episode of South Park where Eric Cartman pretends to have a handicap so he can compete in the Special Olympics.  However, Fakeford is a much more acceptable term for numerous reasons.  One, people can figure it out quicker.  Two, it’s significantly less offensive to explain.  Three, I don’t have to admit that I watched that episode of South Park

For the record, I don’t consider it derogatory, it’s more an “it is what it is” kind of deal.  In fact, in most breeds, the equivalent of a Fakeford is actually a purebred.  It’s only the fact that Hereford breeders haven’t jumped on the crossbred bandwagon that there’s even a need for such a term.


Sullivan Ranch/Bar A Sale Report

To cut to the chase, the sale was better situated when it was the week before Black’s.  It would be hard to say the crowd was even half as large as the last time I went to this sale back in 2007.  The best way to describe it is that with the large proportion of very old cows (8+ years old) and relatively low proportion of heavy bred heifers it felt like it worked better as an appetizer leading up to the COTC rather than the week after.

We went because our bull battery needs one thing right now (other than a replacement for the cow killing sterile Brahman bull we sent packing two-weeks ago), a mature calving ease bull that will sire replacement heifers.  We bought the lot 2 bull for that reason.  We don’t have patience for a youngster this year with 40 heifers to cover. 

Top Sellers

Lot 5a – $15,000 - An extremely impressive Charolais bull sired by Bar A Mojito.

Lot 60 - $9,500 – A “fakeford” heifer by The Golden Child that would hold her own in any set of heifers.  Sold to Dustin Glover

Lot 15 - $6,600 – A Meyer 734 bred to Monopoly that sold to our friend Dwight Nieschwitz and then she sold embryos by  Heat Wave for $750/embryo.  Is it just me or is the whole value of donor vs value of embryos ratio continuing to get more and more skewed toward embryos?  The cow brought just about what the embryos from one good flush would bring.

Lot 4 - $6,400 – The ‘chunkiest’ Meyer 734 son I've laid eyes on.

Full Sale Report (minus embryos)


Friday

Sometimes being connected to the internet the way I am is a good thing.  Sometimes it means you waste virtually an entire week obsessing over conference realignment.

For the record, there are way too many UT honks that think A&M needs to follow lock step with them to the Pac-16 for it to be a good idea to do anything other than go to the SEC.

Jog Tracker

I turned the jog tracker on for my phone last Saturday at Black’s, here’s a summary for those of you who have been waiting on pins and needles…

  • It’s half a mile to the back of the display pens, which was the only reason I turned the jock tracker on.
  • That juke to the left was to stop and visit with Kevin Mears.
  • Not sure why it was so wavy, typically it's pretty straight.
  • The loop is because we went on a beer run which is really not related to the bullet just above this.
  • In Oklahoma it’s actually the law that beer not have any flavor or kick to it.


Cattle.fm Domain For Sale

I’m doing some late spring cleaning and came across this domain name in my NetSol account.  It’s a good domain name, I’ll just never have the time to actually do anything with it.

The price is $500, less than that and I'll just keep it.  If you are interested in it, email me at jeff@cattle.com


Thursday

I’m quite the bipolar blogger, I’m either constantly thinking about stuff to write about or I don’t write about anything at all.

Steerplanet

Here’s a big thumbs up to Jason over at Steerplanet for addressing several cases of riffraff attempting to derail the forums in the past few months.  Speaking from nearly a decade of experience now, it’s not nearly as easy to cut that stuff in the bud as a person would think.

Cream of the Crop

It always makes my stomach turn a bit when I put the origination and destination into Mapquest and it brings up the entire nation but we’re heading to Oklahoma tomorrow for the Cream of the Crop sale any way.

A big thank you to Kevin Mears for starting the downward spiral of my day Wednesday with the status update that it will be 103 in Oklahoma Saturday. 

The pictures Christy has posted on her blog have been better motivation to go to the sale than the sale catalog itself.

Naming Bulls

I knew it.

I knew as soon as my son named him “Maxamillion” he was doomed.

I don’t know why we even wasted time with two months of pampering and a second breeding soundness exam; we should have known he’d fail again because he was given a name.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is the cause for so many AI studs meeting unfortunate ends so early, they’ve all been given names.


Past Posts