| 6030Deere - 2/8/2026 14:56
If you watch efficiency data, efficiency doesn’t necessarily follow cow size. University and independent feeders have shown this.
However cow size can follow available resources hence I would not be running same cow in Idaho or Arizona as in the southeast or the corn belt.
Heritability seems to be similar to fertility, milk, etc EPD traits rather than dang near linear BW and YW.
Hand feeding calves in their own feed pans will really open a guy’s eyes. Very small sample group but you start then seeing eating habits of cattle in fence line bunk situations that mimic those individuals and the resulting performance. The peckers vs the shovelers.They all get “the same” but the result is different.
Owning cattle from day one till kill, I want the biggest carcass for the shortest time on feed with same feed input.
OK, as Devil's Advocate, you are not really feeding them the same, the peckers are eating less then the shovelers, now that being said definitely want the latter, but on that basis one cannot really judge efficiancy, the picky eaters may well be the most efficent from a feed convesion angle, until you weigh feed going in and gains you really don't know for a fact which are the most efficent ones. |
Ideal cow weight- what does these cows weigh?
