A Steak in Genomics™

When we talk about improving beef cattle genetics, it's easy to get caught up in the numbers. We want heavier calves, better growth, improved carcass merit and more productive cows. But there's another question we need to ask: Are we selecting cattle that fit the environment we're asking them to perform in? Genetic potential is only part of the equation. An animal's phenotype, or how they perform, is a combination of their genotype and environment in which they are raised. Therefore, environment and management influence how that potential is expressed, and genetics that work well in one production system may not be the best fit for another. In my conversations with producers, I tend to come back to three traits that deserve more attention when matching cows to their environment: mature cow size, hair shedding and calving ease. Each addresses a different challenge, but all three provide opportunities to make more intentional selection decisions. Mature cow size: Bigger ...

It’s bull sale season, which means sale catalogs are starting to show up. If you’re like me, there’s something fun about getting a new catalog and flipping through the pages of bulls, pedigrees, performance information, EPDs, accuracies and selection indexes. But after a few pages, all those numbers can start to look a little overwhelming. And that’s where I think we sometimes make bull selection harder than it needs to be. When I open a sale catalog, I don't want to start by looking for the bull with the biggest number. I want to start by asking a much simpler question: What do I need this bull to do? The answer is going to be different for every operation. Maybe you’re buying a bull to breed heifers and need to put a strong emphasis on calving ease. Maybe you’re producing calves to sell at weaning and want to emphasize growth. Maybe you’re retaining ownership through harvest, or maybe you're building a cow herd and need to think about the traits that will influence the daught...

  How genetics, reproduction, nutrition and economics came together to rethink replacement female selection The U.S. beef cow herd has been getting smaller, and rebuilding it isn't as simple as deciding to keep more heifers. For many producers, the decision at weaning comes down to a familiar choice: Do I sell this heifer, or do I keep her as a replacement?  But what if those aren't the only two choices? That question was one of the drivers behind Retain with Intention: Building a Better Missouri Cow Herd , an MU Extension program developed to take a different look at replacement heifer selection and development. When a heifer comes through the chute, we're often quick to think of her as either a replacement or a sale animal. But retaining a heifer is an investment. Once that decision is made, there are additional costs associated with developing her, getting her bred, carrying her through her first pregnancy and ultimately getting her into the mature cow herd. That mean...