Headquarters, Blake Nelson

MAINE-ANJOU Headquarters

M. BLAKE NELSON AMAA Executive Vice President

Greetings,

I hope that spring is smiling upon you and that you are well! It seems that with each passing day our lives get one more step closer to normalcy. It is great to see things beginning to open up even in some of the strictest areas of our country. I don’t know about you, but this whole situation has definitely made me more appreciative of our way of life and the many freedoms we get to enjoy on a daily basis.

This brings us to a time of year that is always exciting with the grass growing, that new calf crop starting to take shape and planning matings for the next batch. As we all know, our cowherd is really what makes or breaks us because they control half of the genetics and are responsible for raising the calf to reach its genetic potential. The sire selection is the other half of the challenge that we as producers have control over. I know there is a lot of thought and anguish that goes into trying to pick the right bulls, but I also think this is one of the major challenges in seedstock production that many of us look forward too. There are many thoughts and scenarios that go through our minds when we are making these decisions.

To me, sire selection is really like the “Draft Day” for us as producers and just like those sports teams we have to look at the field of players and have our criteria and ask ourselves many questions about the bulls we are going to use.

First on the list for me is always what age and size of female are we mating. Maybe it’s my grandpa’s voice I hear in my ear saying “It doesn’t matter what they look like or how they grow if we can’t get them here alive.” I think this is definitely a place to start, especially if we are breeding heifers or young, smaller sized cattle. I know that management and maternal genetics can have as much of an impact on birthweights as anything but studying a bull’s genetic predictors for CE-Calving Ease and BW-Birth Weight can be a great place to start. This to me helps sift the field of potential bulls quickly and then we can turn our attention to what other traits and goals we want to achieve with the resulting calf from this mating - show calf, replacement females, herdsires, commercial feeder calf etc. I think this helps us realize what traits should be priorities and also what we may not have to focus on. For example, when looking at this, what show cattle physical traits are going to be high on our selection criteria and are we are trying to make bulls for our customers with strong EPDs for growth, carcass traits, and calving ease may also be extremely important.

With all these things in mind, ultimately marketability of the calves we are trying to produce should be at the top of our list. Some things to ask yourself, how are you selling them and what do our customers value? Both great questions to answer. Even if we are keeping replacements we would like to have a strong, notable pedigree and might have specific traits we want to improve on. Traveling around to many production and consignment sales you occasionally see two things that can help in marketing genetics - to have a known, popular pedigree and for the genetics to be timely. Keep in mind what your customers want, what pedigrees are having success and breed accordingly.

Another challenge that can come into play is sourcing the semen. We are fortunate in the Maine-Anjou breed that many of the major distributors carry our genetics and can be delivered in a cost efficient manner. One thing that we have found is there are many Maine-Anjou bulls out there but they are a little scattered throughout the distributors. As a staff, we field many questions about what bulls to look at and how to find them, this led to the idea for the 2021 AMAA Sire Catalog. This catalog is a great resource for anyone that would like to see many of the AI options that are available in our breed today, it can be viewed at maine-anjou.org. If you ever have any questions about genetics that you are trying to find, please call us and we will do our best to answer your questions or get you in touch with the breeders/owners.

Turning our attention to the AJMAA National Junior Heifer Show, June 19th is right around the corner and we are in deep preparation here at headquarters. Lindsey and all the staff are getting ready to “Let the Good Times Roll” this year in Chickasha, Okla., and it looks to be a phenomenal event. It is our goal to have a tremendous show and if numbers hold true, it could be a record breaking turnout. I hope that you are planning on joining us and having a great week devoted to the kids and Maine-Anjou! As always if we can help you and anyway, please let us know!

Take care, Blake MAINE-ANJOU - Vision, Vigor, Value!