GOOD BULLS MEAN BETTER BEEF!

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 64, 8 December 1937, Page 13

GOOD BULLS MEAN BETTER BEEF!

Advantage of Well-bred Sires AMER1CAN EXPERIMENTS The owner of a breeding herd of nondescript cattle may well ask the question: What would I gain by breeding those cows to good type, early mataring, purebred beef bulls? What advantage does a grade beef steer or heifer from a purebred sire and an ordinary cow have over a steer or heife? from unimproved strains? The United States Department of Agriculture a'nd the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station have provided some. specific answers in the results of a recent four years' experiment in the production and quality of meat from mongrel and grade cattle. A summary of the comparison is as follows: — Duri'ng the summer the grade or improved calves gained a little more than a tenth of a pound a day faator than ordinary calves, and weighed 54 lb. more at weaning time. In the winter the grade-weaned calves co'ntinued to gaih the same xate, but duxing the second summer the xates of gain were about equal. The grade yearlings put on about 621b. a head more in the feed lot gains than the others. The grades ate more feed each day, but they consumed considerably less food for each 1001b. of grain, actually about 13 per cent. less concentrates, and about 17 per cent. less hay. It was found thai the grade stock put on their gain 1 dollar 31 cents a 1001b. of live weiglit cheaper than the nondescripts. In comparing the meat quality of the two classes, it was found that the offspring sired by.the purebred bull graded higher than the others as feeder animals, as slaughter animals, and as dressed eaTcases. The grade cattle were fatter than the nondescript stock, and on the basis of separable fat on the ninth-tenth-eleventh rib ents (which giv&s a good idea of the fat on the whole carcase), the grade cattle were about 5 per cent. fatter. The grades not only had a higher proportion of fat, but averaged a larger total amount of fat. The meat from the grade or improved stock was more tender and considerably more desirable from the consumor's point of view.