Benefits of Cattle Straight Breeding

Becky Mills
Contributing Editor

List the many advantages of crossbreeding and Sloan Walker will listen politely. Then he'll look across the pasture at his clone-like, growthy feeder steers and say, "I haven't lost a thing."

The Waukeenah, Florida, cattleman didn't start out straight breeding his 230-cow commercial herd. "I used to buy cows around, getting the herd started. I used all kinds of bulls, Simmental bulls, Charolais bulls, Limousin bulls."

"Then, about 13 or 14 years ago I got real serious." Walker, a numbers man, settled on Angus partly because of their extensive database. He started artificial insemination (A.I.) breeding to Angus bulls as well as using them as clean-up bulls. "After seven years of A.I., I completely swapped out all my cows. Every cow on my place is a cow I raised."

If any of his neighbors were waiting for his herd to go downhill from lack of hybrid vigor, they're still waiting. For starters, there's fertility. He synchronizes and time breeds all his cows that are at least 55 days post-calving with one round of A.I. He typically gets average conception rates of 65% to 72%. In a week to ten days, he turns in the clean-up bulls and pulls them 64 days later. The overall conception rate is typically in the low 90s. With his heifers, he'll synchronize and time breed once, then check heat and breed them another time or two to keep from buying more clean-up bulls. Once again, conception rates average in the low 90s.

ECONOMICS PLAY A ROLE IN HERD DECISIONS

If a cow or heifer is open after Walker's breeding season, she goes. While it makes economic sense to cull an open cow, University of Tennessee animal scientist Troy Rowan says it is a slow uphill battle to use this practice to increase your herd's fertility. That's one of the places crossbreeding shines, particularly if you're using a crossbred female. "Fertility is a lowly heritable trait, only five to ten percent comes from genetics. It is mostly a combination of management and the environment."

However, Walker also gives part of the credit for his herd's fertility to his insistence on only saving replacement heifers from A.I. sired calves born in the first part of the calving season. They aren't in short supply. Last year he had 95 calves in seven days.

Rowan endorses this practice. "Lifetime fertility is helped by choosing heifers from females that get pregnant early in the calving season. It is absolutely a strategy that will help you. Those heifers are generally bigger and that gives them a little jump start."

Longevity is another one of those traits that typically improves in crossbred females. Walker says his older girls are doing fine. "I have 13-year-old cows I'm going to sell this year, not because they're open but to make room for better ones."

Since a commercial producer's paycheck depends on pounds sold, a crossbred female, especially bred to a bull of another breed, brings heavier calves to the weaning pen. Once again, Walker isn't worried. Part of his calves topped 800 lbs. at weaning, and after gaining an average of almost 2.60 lbs. per day for a 75-day preconditioning period, his heavier load of steers averaged 1,015 lbs. and the lighter load weighed 890 lbs. His feeder heifers averaged 850 lbs.

He saves creep feeding for the two or three weeks before weaning, typically the first part of July, so they're already used to the feed. He hand-feeds a mix of 65% soy hull pellets, 20% corn gluten and 15% citrus pellets. If citrus pellets aren't available, he substitutes cracked corn. He feeds the same mix during preconditioning.

It's safe to say he doesn't need to cross-breed to a terminal sire to boost carcass quality, either. Last year's steers went 40% Prime and 60% Choice.

STRAIGHT-BRED WORKS IN ALL PARTS OF THE COUNTRY

In Tryon, Nebraska, commercial cattleman Josh Streiff has a straight-bred Hereford herd. "My Dad started raising Herefords 60 years ago, before I was born. They are from improved genetics and when you have 60 years of genetics, it is hard to get it back once you breed it out."

While he doesn't get carcass data back on his calves, he says, "If they sell good and you have a repeat buyer, you know they're working out." In his case, both his feeder steers and heifers have gone to the same Nebraska feedyard for the last two years. This past year, his heifers brought nine cents a lb. more than the steers and were A.I. bred rather than finished in the feedlot.

In addition to quality genetics, both Streiff and Walker make their load lots of straight-bred cattle more valuable with value-added programs and savvy marketing. Streiff says, "The local sale barns push black cattle and dock Herefords. I've been selling through Superior for at least 19 years and had excellent luck with them."

In addition, his Herefords are age- and source-verified, Non-Hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC) and earn Superior Livestock Auction's Progressive Genetics label because of the quality of bulls he buys. All of the value-added programs he's in are listed with the cattle information on Superior Livestock Auction's website when the cattle sell.

Walker sells his load lots through the Georgia SAFE sale, a long-running board sale. "I'm enrolled in IMI Global, age and source verified, NHTC, Angus Verified and AngusLink. These programs help provide transparency to the buyer," he notes.

Director of Commercial Industry Relations for the American Angus Association Troy Marshall says this past year, 600 lb. calves enrolled in Angus Link brought an average of $12 a hundredweight over similar calves that were not enrolled.

Rowan says, "Certainly, there is math that has to be done. Can you afford not to crossbreed? Does the premium outweigh the performance you lose by not crossbreeding?"

Sloan Walker simply repeats his first statement. "I haven't lost a thing."

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