Will Winter speaks out about the value of Linear Measurement...a total of three parts

THE ART OF BREEDING PROPER CATTLE      -Part One                                                                                                                   

 

                                                                   By Will Winter, DVM

 

The art of breeding proper livestock boils down to two major criteria: selecting the good ones and culling the bad ones. For me, culling is so painful that I’m terrible at doing it! I save the losers! I seem to be drawn to some of the wrong ones for all the wrong reasons, maybe because I feel sorry for them. That is why this article is not about me! 

 

When I need to make herd-building decisions, like we all need to do, I am inclined to turn to the professionals. And at this point I will admit, not everyone agrees who will be that person. There are several out there. This story is about the ones that I have found and why I think they are on to something very interesting. Please come along for the ride and see if you agree.  

Posted on May 20, 2016 .

Linear Measurement "Cowlipers" for sale

Please contact me at 208-315-4726 or email at Steve@tailormadecattle.com for more information.

The calipers consist of two hand held measuring devices and come with a CD which includes  9 videos Gearld Fry and I recorded in April of 2012, three word documents about why and how, a power point and printable field data sheets.

"Cowlipers" cost $200.00 plus shipping (usually $30-$0 via UPS.

Posted on February 23, 2016 .

Linear Measurement...why should I?

Building herds of cows and bulls with the proper form and type sets the stage for healthy, easy keeping and easy calving cows with longevity.  Measuring of the many different body parts allows the operator to recognize structural and functional defects, which are genetic defects, and potential problems that arise from improper breeding practices.

Burl Winchester was the man who re-introduced linear measurement back into the United States. An excerpt from a story I ran across about Burl...

"Burl Winchester was curious man from a curious family.  Growing up on a very poor farm outside of Clovis, New Mexico, he and his brothers took care of the family livestock.  As I remember the story, when they were raising 4H sheep in the 1930s, they decided to start measuring them and recording the measurements in a little note book.  They found strong correlations between many of the traits and started organizing them around the edges of the pages (for each Animal) so they could easily compare the measurements to the general condition of different individuals.  This led to making the marks on 3 x 5 cards instead of notebook pages so they could easily sort the cards by different traits and compare that to what they were seeing when the looked at the animals.  This was the genesis of the spectrofan © cards that are still used today.

Burl extended the use of these cards to cattle and became easily convinced that by selecting and culling based on traits that correlated with such results as grade of meat cuts in carcasses, or mothering ability, winter survivability, one could easily build a herd of very high quality (however on defined that) within just a few generations.  By selecting herd bulls and breeding females to meet one’s criteria, the results were demonstrated repeatedly to be dramatic and unquestionable."

We to can use this tool in the development of the cattle that populate our pastures, to breed for a more efficient cow on grass.

 

Posted on February 23, 2016 .