Beef Cattle Industry

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Beef Cattle Industry
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• Beef cattle industry produces more than 45 of
  total cash receipts from all livestock products
• Decline in consumption of beef is linked to a
  drop in the beef supply and increasing prices for
  beef because people think it is high in
  cholesterol
• Very little beef is imported or exported out of
  the US
• Texas and Kansas make up 50 of the feedlots

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The demand for beef depends on

• the of people
• income per person
• changes in peoples meat preferences

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Advantages for raising beef

• beef use roughages for feed that would be wasted
• low labor requirements
• small capital investment
• low death losses
• beef adapt for use in small and large operations
• high demand for meat

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Disadvantages

• cattle feeding is a high risk business
• not efficient converters of concentrated feeds
  into meat
• takes longer to
• increase herd
• high capital
• investment

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3 types of beef cattle production systems

• cow-calf producers
• purebred breeders
• cattle feeders

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Desirable conformation of beef animals

• long, trim, deep-sided body
• no excess fat on the brisket, foreflank, or
  hindflank
• no extra hide around the throat, dewlap, or
  sheath
• heavily muscled forearm
• proper height to the point of the shoulder
• correct muscling
• maximum development of the round, rump, loin, and
  rib

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Ultrasonics

• use of high-frequency sound waves to measure fat
  thickness and loin-eye area
• use when selecting breeding animals

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Performance testing records are used to

• cull low-producing cows
• check calf crop
• select replacement cattle
• measure bull productivity
• improve herd management
• improve the grade of calves produced
• increase weaning weight
• give buyers more information
• provide permanent records

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Pedigree

• record of the ancestors of an animal

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EPD (Expected Progeny Difference)

• measure of the degree of difference between the
  progeny of the bull and the progeny of the
  average bull of the breed in the trait being
  measured
• usually given in a or value

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Feeding Cattle

• Typical roughages pasture, hay, silage, straw,
  corncobs, and other crop residue
• Corn Silage widely used as a roughage feed for
  beef herds
• Alfalfa most common roughage in Midwest and West

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• Coastal Bermuda grass more common in southern
  coastal states
• Native range grass utilized in western states

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Feeding Cattle Cont.

• Less common roughages
• Oats straw, barley straw, and wheat straw
• Cottonseed hulls, peanut hulls, oat hulls, rice
  hulls
• Grasses for pasture hay
• Fescue, orchard grass, reed canary grass, smooth
  brome grass, Kentucky, bluegrass, perennial
  ryegrass, timothy, redtop, Bahia, dallies, and
  Sudan.

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Feeding Cattle Cont.

• Legumes red clover, alsike clover, sercea,
  lespedeza, peanut hay, sweat clover, cowpeas,
  soybean hay
• Roughages provide the cheapest source of energy