Which SAV bull?

[Cdcollett]

Ken,
If it aint broke don't fix it. I guess what I mean is would you change direction if you were Kelly Schaff, $14,000 averages on yearling bulls don't happen everywhere..

What a supreme marketing job they do. Feed them to a 1000 lb weaning weight and sell them with somewhat outcross genetics. To me they waste some feed there but I wouldn’t change a thing either. Not worth losing customers to feed to 750 lb weaning weights now. Fat sells and hides some flaws as well.
The question I have & don’t know is do there typical customer also feed for 900-1000 lb weaning weights and if they do does it pay or cost to do that in the end? There’s some irony in Bismarck and Final answer being the most used Sav bulls if that’s still the case. Either way, they have a good program.

[bse]

For me in the fall it will be Extension, he doesnt have the numbers that most will like. A bull calf out of him around here would be hard to sell, gonna use sexed heifer and hopefully make some great mommas!!!! Theres a reason SAV bought part of XXP.

[Ebenezer]

When a breed is known by a few elite herds of high dollar sources of unproven bulls to be bought and trialed by the next level down of breeders or even two levels down (common people) and then people have to wonder how they'll breed, what do you call that? Sort of a self-imposed pyramid scheme? Or name a few additional bulls a new big name herd is using and wonder how they'll turn out with multi-thousand dollar sons? If you really want to know: Spend $500 on semen and shipping of the same sire they used that has some proof and skip spending the rest of the $13,500 to find out. The chances are that you will used a climatically acclimatized cow that will produce a similar bull that is still unproven but has a better chance to work for you because of gestational programming than an unproven son from many ecosystems away from the farm or ranch. I have no responsibility to send gobs of money to other folks on over priced and unproven bulls to make them famous.

The whole mentality is like Antiques Roadshow: something valuable, a one of a kind, signed by the artist while the average farmer or rancher just needs good cattle, probably improving type cattle and not just a high dollar bull with a three letter prefix. Cattle are not art but breeding programs that really work for you and your customers is an art and a science. Buying here, there and yonder to say that you bought here, there and yonder is all about motion, commotion and promotion unless you know for sure that an animal coming on the farm in a trailer or a straw is going to help you and your customers make a few more dollars and save you a few more dollars. That will be a proven individual and not an unproven bull with the right prefix. Otherwise, a way, like crossword puzzles, to occupy your mind.

But if you like it, go for it. For all of the years that the current system has been used: The Angus bred is now well known for oversized cows with bad feet and legs, poor udder quality, disposition, and low fertility as a concern and folks are STILL chasing the carcass values that seem to elude them while the average weaning weight in the USA has stalled out. The average life of a purebred operation is still short. Sort of like tea leaves and palms; somethings need to be read for signs.

[Air gator]

But what if you are making a priority of having good feet and Sav Resource is the highest ranked bull for foot quality? And his daughters apparently have great udders. IMHO if you are paying for the bull or semen or whatever...you don't need anyone else's approval. Whatever your goal is for your herd you are the master of your own fate or herd.

[NEFarmwife]

I am fortunate enough to have many of SAVs offspring being pastured along our fence line and get an opportunity to see many of them day after day, as they grow out in pasture.

You won’t find better calves, than those of which they’re raising. They eat the same grass, ours do. Do they pack some pounds on them before the sale? Maybe. But in our extensive use of their semen, we too have experienced NICE growth of our own calves. When we sell bulls, we continue to feed them on a weaning ration and they’re still growing well.

We feed ours out ourselves now and we had 95+ percent of them grade choice or better, a few rated prime.

When it comes to dollars, it’s hard not to use SAV genetics. We steered away from using them exclusively this past breeding season since all our replacements are SAV. We did use some President this year and our own SAV bull but I’d say out of the 500+ we bred this year, roughly 10% were SAV bred.

Guess it really depends on what you are striving to obtain in your herd. I don’t believe we used any SAV on our purebreds, although we could have introduced those genetics.

[wbvs58]

NEF, you might be able to answer this. Do you find that the actual marbling in the beef you feed out is high but it is just the EPD number is low? I assume that the EPD figure is derived from actual ultrasound scans and of late some confirmation by genomics and not so much the actual marble score of the finished beef?????

I like using SAV genetics so am curious as to why the low marbling numbers when everything else with the numbers is good and the resulting calf on the ground is pretty good with great growth.

Ken

[wbvs58]

I am sorry Air Gator, I think I hijacked your post.

Ken

[Ebenezer]

NEF, you might be able to answer this. Do you find that the actual marbling in the beef you feed out is high but it is just the EPD number is low? I assume that the EPD figure is derived from actual ultrasound scans and of late some confirmation by genomics and not so much the actual marble score of the finished beef?????

I like using SAV genetics so am curious as to why the low marbling numbers when everything else with the numbers is good and the resulting calf on the ground is pretty good with great growth.

Ken

Isn't muscling antagonistic to marbling in the EPD selection process? Ever seen a bulky and thick muscled Wagyu?

[Jake]

We continue to use SAV genetics because they work in our environment. We can graze almost the entirety of the year either between grass and crop residue. I've been able to increase performance without increasing frame size and their genetics flesh just as easily as the OCC stuff we used before. There's just as many people that hate them for the prefix as love them for it. How they raise them in ND really has no bearing on how I expect those genetics to work for me.

[NEFarmwife]

NEF, you might be able to answer this. Do you find that the actual marbling in the beef you feed out is high but it is just the EPD number is low? I assume that the EPD figure is derived from actual ultrasound scans and of late some confirmation by genomics and not so much the actual marble score of the finished beef?????

I like using SAV genetics so am curious as to why the low marbling numbers when everything else with the numbers is good and the resulting calf on the ground is pretty good with great growth.

Ken

I can’t honestly speak with a whole lot of knowledge, when it comes to marbling. But the proof would be in our scores, correct? When I receive the information back from slaughter, I get each carcass tag, hot weight, sex, grade, cut...if they didn’t marble well, we wouldn’t be graded so nicely.

A recent group that we just got feedback from, had us grade 8 Prime, 54 Choice. Anything less and I’d be pulling that mating to find who he was out of and seeing how that dams offspring has performed.

Our last group, would have been our “dinks” that took a bit longer to grow. They’d have been a bit older by now, 16-18 months. I should be getting that information back soon. We really want to evaluate that group and find whether there is a common denominator. Some of these could have been later calving, some could have been bull bred, some may just not have great mommas. This whole process is fairly new to us and we’re hoping to use what information we get, to make more informed decisions.

We belong to the NHTC. So we can’t use growth hormones.

[jscunn]

NEFarmwife,

Nice job on the percent Prime.. How did the YGs look?

[wbvs58]

NEF, you might be able to answer this. Do you find that the actual marbling in the beef you feed out is high but it is just the EPD number is low? I assume that the EPD figure is derived from actual ultrasound scans and of late some confirmation by genomics and not so much the actual marble score of the finished beef?????

I like using SAV genetics so am curious as to why the low marbling numbers when everything else with the numbers is good and the resulting calf on the ground is pretty good with great growth.

Ken

I can’t honestly speak with a whole lot of knowledge, when it comes to marbling. But the proof would be in our scores, correct? When I receive the information back from slaughter, I get each carcass tag, hot weight, sex, grade, cut...if they didn’t marble well, we wouldn’t be graded so nicely.

A recent group that we just got feedback from, had us grade 8 Prime, 54 Choice. Anything less and I’d be pulling that mating to find who he was out of and seeing how that dams offspring has performed.

Our last group, would have been our “dinks” that took a bit longer to grow. They’d have been a bit older by now, 16-18 months. I should be getting that information back soon. We really want to evaluate that group and find whether there is a common denominator. Some of these could have been later calving, some could have been bull bred, some may just not have great mommas. This whole process is fairly new to us and we’re hoping to use what information we get, to make more informed decisions.

We belong to the NHTC. So we can’t use growth hormones.

Thanks NEF, yes my suspicion is that a SAV derived steak laid beside a high marbling EPD steak no one would pick the difference, very simplistic example and I know there is a lot more to it but trying to get my take of it across.

When it comes down to it the most important traits my clients need are fertility and weaning weights as they wean straight onto the truck and off to weaner sales and those traits need to be balanced as high weaning weights may have a detrimental effect on fertility.

Ken

[NEFarmwife]

NEFarmwife,

Nice job on the percent Prime.. How did the YGs look?

I’ll get back to you on that. I got all the paperwork now for our spring fats.