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Show Breed foevver beef "Aim to produce more pounds per animal of good red meat." That is advice ad-vice to beef cattle breeders by Norris J. Stenquist, Utah State University Extension Exten-sion livestock specialist. "Cattle breeders must continually select quality animals that will reduce the amount of fat in the meat and produce pro-duce a leaner, more tender, more desirable product for consumers," he stressed. "Remember that we are looking look-ing for a quite different type of animal than the smaller, short, compact individual in-dividual that was selected 20 years ago. We want bigger, longer animals that contain more meat." : Both consumers and producers benefit from this change, the specialist njpted. The producers are able to increase in-crease the rate of gain and the efficien-, efficien-, cy o gain of their cattle. Thereby, they ke$p down the production costs. At the same time, the consumers are able to get the kind of meat they want. Stenquist urges cattle breeders to evaluate their animals. Subject them to rate of gain tests and feed efficiency tests. Follow animals through slaughter to the cooler and pick up the carcass information on them to be sure they are producing the type of carcass desired without being overly finished. Central test stations provide tunity for testing a small percenOPPOr' the animals and comparing th geo1 animals from other producersi stations the animals are subi the same care and feeding. Stenquist said, "This proviH valuable comparative inform However, you should expect to aT1' bulk of animal evaluation right on " farm where you provide the feed 1 and carry out the program." He explained that the evalm. referred to as performance testin eludes a pre-weaning phase andaT! weaning stage. A breeder develT' production index for his cows to i ' mine how each one does in relatil the other cows in his herd in teZ5 pounds of calf each produces TtT is considered to have her greatest fluence from birth to weaning calf. Bulls put on test that do willy m also reflect back to positive evalL;! of their mothers. Mtl USU Extension livestock speciafei. in each area of the state are helZ producers obtain the type of , puterized performance test informal! that can guide them in their mam.? ment. It can help them breed bettj |