Calving great expectations

Returning to the corral at dawn yesterday, I found the first calf of the year trying to rise for breakfast, a heifer out of stub-eared 352, herself a first calf in 2011. But with milder weather, little Miss will get to keep her ears intact. She’s a third generation of stacked, high-accuracy Angus genetics from AI.

They say phenotype tells us what cattle seem to be, pedigree tells us what they should be and progeny tells us what they are. We have one more metric these days, so I check her grandma’s GeneMax™ Score and confirm it is way up there at 95, with both components of marbling and gain maxed out at 5. Related steer data backs that up, so throwing in the tendency to calve early to an AI sire, I’m convinced this is a prepotent cow family.

By noon, the rest of the heifers are helping the calf along, and this morning she was joined by a half-sister… well a little closer kin, since they share not only a common sire but a great-great grandma as well. Calves are our future.

Though we must cull another 15% to 20%, we’ll build on the base that can gain and grade best, to make increasingly expensive beef increasingly worth the money for consumers.

May all of our calving seasons continue to go so well—especially as the ladies find shelter from the rains that must surely come.

Till then, let’s keep targeting the brand and buidling tomorrow together.

–Steve

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