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Show ProuucorG urgod to breed boffcr beeff 'Aim to produce more pounds per animal of good red meat'. That is advice to beef cattle breeders by Norris Stenquist, USU Extension Ex-tension livestock specialist. Cattle breeders must continually select quality animals that will reduce the amount of fat in the meat and produce a leaner, more tender, more desirable product for consumers.' Remember Re-member we are lookingfora quite different type of animal than the smaller, short, compact individual that was selected 20 years ago. We want bigger, longer animals that contain more meat.' Both consumers and producers pro-ducers benefit from this. Producers are able to increase in-crease the rate of gain and the efficiency of gain of their cattle. They can keep down 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 breeders to evaluate their animals. Subject them to rate of gain tests and feed efficiency tests. Follow them through slaughter to cooler and pick up carcass info on them to be sure they are producing the type of carcass desired without being be-ing overly finished. Central test stations provide pro-vide opportunity for testing a small percent of the animals ani-mals and comparing them with animals from other producers. pro-ducers. This provides valuable comparative information. However, you should expect to do the bulk of animal evaluation right on your farm where you provide the feed, labor, and carry out the program. pro-gram. The testing includes a pre -weaning phase and a post weaning phase. Breeders develop a production index for their cows to determine how each one does in relation re-lation to the others in the herd. The cow is considered consid-ered to have her greatest influence from birth to weaning wean-ing of the calf. |