The cowherd is the factory and in most cases has to function on forages-that old b.s. about feed the crap out of the bulls so you can see how the steers work doesn't wash. Cut a few more bulls and finish them as steers if you want to check performance. Mike maybe your forage fed bulls returned you the same net profit because you didn't have as many dollars in corn stuffed into them. Purebred breeders blowing smoke up each others butt about ranchers will only buy fat bulls is getting pretty old too-I'm heading top a sale next week where the bulls are lean and mean-the Angus will be 200 pounds lighter than most other yearlings and the Hereford two year olds will be 400 pounds shy of the Calgary hogs-this sale despite selling almost exclusively to commercial men will be one of the top sale averages in Canada-unfortunately for me. I've bought a few hundred bulls on order and believe me I never got seduced by 'white muscle'-nothing worse than watching a mollycoddled long yearling stagger in after the summer all ribs and fly bites-his liver like a drunks and his toes all twisted and turned. My hockey players come to training camp without any fat on  them-they don't melt away to nothing over the season-bulls are athletes too so why would we want them 2-300 pounds overweight at the start of their season.