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Show By Bob Murdock BEEF CULLING Topnotch foundation stock and a program of continuous and care-full care-full culling of animals that tau to equal or improve upon their parents are necessary in breeding superior lines of beef cattle This is the advice of George Henderson, extension animal husbandman hus-bandman at Utah State Agricultural Agricul-tural College, based on results ot research. Prof. Henderson says the U. Department of Agriculture's range livestock experiment station m Miles City, Montana, iouna uui selection and line breeding over a period of 20 years increased the average level of many desirable characteristics in individuals and specific lines of cattle. A 10-year comparison of steers sired at the station by a single line of inbred bulls stands out as an example to which desirable charactesistics can be improved he says. . , , Four Groups ot steers siartea in the feedlot at weaning weights averaging 442 pounds gained an average of 1.99 pounds daily. Ten years later another group of steers from the same inbred line averaged averag-ed 456 pounds at weaning, and sained 2.48 pounds daily. Pounds of grain for each 100 pounds of gain increased slightly, from 586 to 593 in the ten-year period. But this is chargeable to the usual reduced re-duced feed efficiency in cattle as fattening increases, USDA experts note. |