PINEBANK NEWSLETTER

January 2012

We are into Summer and so far we are having a wonderful season, long may it last!.
Whereas it is usually becoming dry at this time of year, we have had rain storms at regular intervals right through wth the resulting growth in green grass. Not only that but the bottom has remained so the grass remains at high quality.
There has been some flooding in Australia and in other district in New Zealand but we have missed out and are just having a little colder season than normal and a lot wetter. Results are that all the stock are in good condition which will mean good conceptions this year.

How do grassbred cattle handle dry-lots?

This has been a frequently asked question and it occupies many breeders minds. Has selection for dry-lot changed the enzymes in the gut of cattle and made them different to those cattle selected for total grass production?
We have had two chances to look at just this exercises. I shall explain to you in both instances what occurred
The first one occurred in the mid 1980’s when we sent semen from a bull of ours to America to take part in a progeny test against the top growth bulls in the States at that time. The idea then was to test a top bull from each country against American cattle to get some idea where each country’s performance lay.
Although we paid $5000 for our bull being tested, at no time was I informed about any other countrys bulls being involved. I understood that commercial heifers had been purchased to be used and were randomised to each bull.
This is what you would expect if the test was to have any scientific credence.
I had been informed, by the then Secretary, that all bulls coming into the States had their raw data automatically penalise 20% before entering their recording program.
American data has no penalty entering New Zealand’s program.
Maybe. if this test had a scientific input, our bulls data maynot have been penalised

I never ever received any written information. All I got was telephoned results at the end of each period, calving, weaning preparation for dry-lot, then silence. I have been unable to get any information since. But this is what I do know.
The stud herd that ran the trial calved his herd and the experimental herd inside.
Remember that I do not know whether any other country’s bulls were involved or just ours. I only know about our bull’s behaviour.
They pulled just as many calves from our bull as any other bull. We had never pulled a calf from our bull, which indicates to me that they pulled the calves too early, but that is reasonable since it was an experiment, and they wished to get as many live calves as possible representing each bull.

Our bull kept right up with the other bulls, in fact was in the middle at weaning.
Retained his place at yearling, much to everyone’s surprise, and was now approaching dry-lot.
I anticipated that when our bull’s progeny was on drylot they would fall behind as there had been no selection applied for this characteristic. The other sires had many generations of selection on grain.

Since then the data and contacts have disappeared. I believe that the American Angus Assn. has a copy but they will not give me the data so I can only believe that our bull began to grow very fast and was the heaviest.
What I do know, is that our bull came out in the top 2% of his years bulls for carcase analysis.

So bulls selected on grass alone can and do perform on drylot.

Our bull was Waigroup 1/80 and he went on to do very well in Australia and we still have semen from him in store . Every now and again we use him just to run a check on how the performance is going in the Waigroup herds He is well behind now.

We also were involved in an experiment with Virgina Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg 24061, in 1987 with Dr Bill Hohenbocken. He ran an experiment with his genetics degree students to see if there was any difference in the gut of bulls that had been selected for grass production as opposed to those bulls selected for dry-lot.

My next Newsletter will cover this experiment.