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RobertMac
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 3725
Location: Mississippi, USA
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 Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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H, you're absolutely right..."middle of the road" depends on where your road is!!!! 
The thing I like about Soapweed's operation is that he runs cattle that work for him on his ranch without a lot of extras, but enough to take good care of his cattle. Keeps his own replacements. If I remember right, he buys bulls from someone that raises his cattle under commercial conditions and, as Soapweed said,"Numbers don't mean anything to me..." and I agree...sorry, Badlands.  Calving season could be debatable, but, given his reason, it would be hard to argue.
To me, middle of the road is the type cattle your environment will support.
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Soapweed
Rancher
Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 12096
Location: northern Nebraska Sandhills
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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I guess my question on this thread is, when did we actually get off track as a whole? Were the cattle of yesterday so much better across the board? I know operations where they breed good cattle and their grandparents bred good cattle, etc., but I have also seen pictures of what to my eye appear relatively useless cattle in the 1980's, 1950's, 1930's. 1880's, etc. I know the economics at our place are different today than they were when my great great grandfather started, and when my dad took over, and they will change again before my kids want to farm. I guess what I am asking is this...
If we are going off the rails, is it a current or ongoing tragedy, and if so what year/era were we on the rails?
Hindsight is always 20:20 and I am sure we have screwed lots of things up today that we will realize tomorrow, but as a whole I think we must have been 50% or more right over time.  |
Those little belt-buckle tall Herefords and Angus of the 1950's really look quite insignificant, inefficient, and slightly disgusting to my eye, and yet some of the seedstock sold for oodles of money. Fads are so fashionable and frivilous, no matter if it is pants with the crotch at the knee, ostriches, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, or cattle that are either cutsie or racehorse look-a-likes. Give me the middle of the road any day.
It is interesting how the odds compile when you throw a pair of dice. Here is the webpage:
http://www.nextshooter.com/trueodds
You will see that there is only one way to make the numbers two (1 and 1) and twelve (6 and 6). There are two ways to make the number three: (2 and 1) and (1 and 2). If it helps you to understand the combinations, picture a blue and a red die. You could have number one on the red and two on the blue, or number two on the red and number one on the blue.
There are two ways to make the three and eleven.
There are three ways to make the four and ten.
There are four ways to make the five and nine.
There are five ways to make the six and eight.
There are six ways to make the seven.
Anyway, my point with the dice is that betting middle of the road is easier to stay on course there, too.
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Big Swede
Member
Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 840
Location: South Dakota
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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When I was younger we had so much more variation in our cowherd. Most of the reason was that we were using a couple different breeds for crossbreeding purposes. We were also using different types due to using more than one breed. So you go to one place and buy a couple bulls and somewhere else and buy a couple bulls and so on and so forth. I was also on a very tight budget at the time so the bulls that I would pick out would usually be out of my price range. Do this for a few years and you can imagine the variations of dispositions, udder qualities, sizes, types, growth, etc. Speaking of middle of the road cattle didn't mean much at that time because it was a very wide road. For the last 25 years we have been straightbreeding Angus and for the past 13 years we have been buying commercial 1/2 brother Angus bulls from one operation. Now the middle of a narrow road has resulted in a much more uniform herd of cattle. Udder quality and disposition problems are now nonexistent.
I agree with Oldtimers EPD ranges for maternal Angus cattle. All those are probably below herd average for the breed I would guess. Just because they are below herd average doesn't mean you will be giving up a lot of performance, but it should mean that they should be more sustainable in most if not all environments.
One thing I will disagree with Soapweed on is that his bulls do have numbers even though they are not officially written down on a registration paper. If you are satisfied with the bulls your supplier is using to produce your seedstock, it must mean that his eye for cattle must be similar to your own otherwise Soap wouldn't be buying them. One great thing about using commercial bulls is that you can buy your picks of the herd out of their proven cows and you can save tens of thousands of dollars per year.
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gcreekrch
Rancher
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 8922
Location: west chilcotin bc
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