17 minute read
Teaming Up with your Vet
Teaming up with your Veterinarian Julia Herman, DVM, MS, Beef Cattle Specialist Veterinarian, NCBA, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff
During last fall’s run, several cattle operations enlisted their veterinarians for a number of duties including pregnancy diagnosis, implementing
vaccination protocols, and aiding culling decisions. During all times of the year, management factors like these play a role in the success of the farm, herd, and business. As external factors continue to add stress to the cattle operation, such as drought, marketing challenges, and human health factors, it is important to realize the other services that veterinarians can provide. The value of the veterinarian-client-patient relationship (VCPR) to the cattle producer and their cattle should not be overlooked.
A VCPR is legally defined by State and Federal statutes as well as by the American Veterinary Medical Association. An established VCPR allows the veterinarian to diagnose and treat animals, prescribe medications, and issue Certificates of Veterinary Inspection (CVIs) or health certificates. Because the VCPR is required to be renewed annually, a yearly consultation with your veterinarian is recommended where multiple facets of the operation are evaluated, goals for the next year are set, and potential interventions are considered. This meeting can provide in-depth understanding of the operation’s capabilities and limitations which can help shape future recommendations. Contributions from veterinarians span a breadth of topics including, but not limited to, those discussed below.
Cow/Calf Management Developing annual vaccination and parasiticide considerations at specific times throughout a bovine’s life is routine for most veterinarians. In this unforgettable year, nutrition considerations and range management options could be discussed with your veterinarian to maximize feed and cattle efficiency. Veterinarians may assist with mineral programs, toxicology inquiries, and sampling of feed or water samples to best utilize your resources. Opportunities to adjust your breeding, weaning, or preconditioning program could be discussed with the veterinary team. Biosecurity, Disease Surveillance, and Outbreak Investigations Veterinarians are trained to evaluate individual animals within a herd system and provide integrative management plans to prevent diseases or problems from occurring in the future. For instance, in a scours outbreak, your veterinarian will be able to evaluate and treat the sick calf, take appropriate samples, and provide recommendations in real time. Next steps would be submitting samples and interpreting results to make management decisions to protect the other calves in the herd, such as completing a necropsy for a better diagnosis, changing pastures to reduce pathogen load, or evaluating newborn calf care and colostrum management. Preventing germs from entering your herd or identifying those pathogens requires some planning and preparation. The Checkoff-funded Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) program is currently developing a daily biosecurity plan template that would be valuable for the producer and veterinarian to complete together as a team. Understanding current risks and preventing future risks is essential to protecting the herd and it helps to have an outside set of eyes evaluating the operation. Record Keeping The value of good record keeping goes beyond knowing if a cow successfully raised a calf every year. With herd analytics, veterinarians can help you improve your herd’s conception, pregnancy, and even stocking rates. As discussed in the BQA program, record keeping also helps recognize withdrawal times from animal health products and prevent residues from showing up in the food supply. Having an objective view of your operation could provide insight to potential improvements. Self-assessment resources for the cow/calf, stocker, and feedyard sectors can be found at bqa.org and would be valuable templates for your veterinarian to critically evaluate the operation. This could include collaborating to create treatment or training protocols to focus on continuous improvement. Emergency Services Having support from your veterinarian in the event of an emergency is vital to the health and welfare of your animals. Ideally, the relationship with your veterinarian does not begin through an emergency appointment at midnight. Once that relationship is developed, you now have a resource available for those moments when professional expertise is needed. Each operation is unique and finding a veterinary practice that supports the needs of your operation is essential. Veterinarians are one branch of your operation’s resource team and can help with short-term and longterm goals towards profit and sustainability. Building a comprehensive management plan for your herd with your veterinarian will help you and your operation adapt to unforeseen obstacles.
The Certified Angus Beef ® brand (CAB®) begins with Angus genetics. The first step toward brand acceptance
is using registered Angus bulls. As genetics vary across the breed, it’s important to consider traits relevant at the ranch, feedyard and packinghouse. Using expected progeny differences (EPDs), you can select sires to complement your maternal goals without sacrificing improvement of carcass potential of your feeder cattle. With nearly 80% of cattle grading Choice or Prime, the market continues to demand cattle with the genetic ability to gain and grade at increasingly higher levels while heifer mates perform on the ranch. For more accurate selection in all traits, let carcass data from your calves establish a baseline. Such data can identify areas of strength and weakness, pointing out needs for genetic selection. Recommendations for marbling are absolute minimums. If carcass merit has been a focus of genetic selection within your cow herd for several generations, you can continue a trend towards quality by starting with these EPD recommendations. If carcass quality has been a lower priority in the genetic selection of your cowherd up to this point, it is recommended that you choose sires from an even higher percentile than our baseline EPD requirements. Select for higher marbling in sires whenever other important traits can also be obtained. When choosing sires that are right for your herd, it is important to consider marketing goals in addition to economically relevant traits. Using EPDs, you can select bulls that complement your maternal goals without sacrificing the ability to improve carcass merit of calves that leave the ranch. In fact, improvement can be made in all of these areas at the same time. CAB acceptance rates. Its value is calculated using a three-year average of grid premiums and discounts. Since marbling is the most limiting factor in CAB acceptance, always consider both Marb and $G to ensure continual progress toward brand certification. (https://www.angus.org/index/)
When selecting a sire for use on virgin heifers, include a focus selection calving ease. Difficult births stress both dam and calf, and may reduce the amount and timeliness of nursing. Heifers experiencing calving difficulty return to estrus later, which can reduce reproductive rates in a controlled breeding season. Calving ease is largely determined by birth weight, and can be accurately managed using Birth Weight (BW) and Calving Ease Direct (CED) EPDs.
MINIMUM GENETIC
REQUIREMENTS The Targeting the Brand™ minimum genetic requirements are breed average or better for marbling EPD and $ Grid of non-parent Angus sires. Actual EPD minimums, below, are based on breed averages from the Fall 2019 Angus Sire Summary. Marbling: The trait most related to achieving the CAB target is marbling, reported by the American Angus Association as “Marb” for the EPD that predicts genetic potential for marbling. CAB requires Modest or greater degrees of marbling (“Upper 2/3 Choice” or “Premium Choice”). Research at the Meat Animal Research Center (MARC) has proven over the years that the Angus breed is superior in marbling to all other mainstream beef breeds. However, a lack of marbling is the top reason Angus-identified cattle do not meet CAB specifications. In 2016, 92.6% of the identified cattle that failed to earn the CAB premium did so because of inadequate marbling. $ Grid ($G): The American Angus Association has developed index tools called $ Values that combine various trait EPDs and economics for ease of selection. Realizing that carcass weight, ribeye area, and fat thickness also affect CAB acceptance, $ Grid ($G) combines Marb and other traits that influence
WHEN TO AIM HIGHER The amount of marbling needed when selecting a herd sire depends on the cow herd he will service. If carcass merit has been a focus of genetic selection within your herd for several generations, you can continue a trend toward quality by starting with the Targeting the Brand™ requirements found at www.cabcattle. com/targeting-the-brand However, if carcass quality has been a lower priority for selection up to this point, it is recommended you choose sires from a higher percentile than the baseline required for the Targeting the Brand™ standards. If your cow herd is of Continental or highly crossbred genetics, or if your Angus cows are not sired by bulls meeting Targeting the Brand™ genetic requirements, you should consider a higher target for Marb and $G to make more dramatic progress. If the herd is Angus-based and known to produce calves that grade well, then Targeting the Brand™ EPD minimums may be sufficient. When purchasing herd sires, consider those that have been DNA tested and have genomic-enhanced EPDs because they will have greater accuracies.
CONSIDER DOCILITY Like carcass traits, disposition is a moderate to highly heritable trait. That’s good news because nervous and aggressive cattle are a pain in the wallet. Data collected on more than 68,000 cattle from 24 Iowa feedyards, shows that cattle that were considered docile graded Premium Choice and Prime at more than double the rate of their nervous to very aggressive contemporaries. Considering all costs, docile calves netted more than $57 above their aggressive counterparts. The research shows that docility in the feedyard pays off with better performance, improved carcass merit and reduced morbidity and treatment costs. The docility (Doc) EPD (www.angus. org/Nce/Definitions.aspx) is presented as a percentage, where a higher value is considered more favorable in terms of docile temperament. Since this is a threshold trait, herds that exhibit no problems in temperament will realize no improvement in selecting for aboveaverage docility EPDs. Doc can be used as part of a complete selection program in the event that a breeder needs to make improvement in a herd’s cattle temperament. In this example, a 10-percentage-point difference exists between the EPDs for Bull A and Bull B. On the average, assuming the two bulls were mated to comparable females, one would expect 10 more calves out of 100 sired by Bull A to have a temperament in the most docile score (score = 1) compared with calves sired by Bull B. In herds where temperament problems are not an issue, this expected difference would not be realized. • Bull A DOC EPD +13% • Bull B DOC EPD +3% Difference 10%
NOTE: Docility is an economically important trait.
A study by Gordon Carstens’ team at Texas A&M University with multiple breeds of feedlot heifers found grading Choice or higher was 63.5% for calm temperaments, compared to 55.5% for their excitable pen mates. Based on weights and USDA’s three-year-average grid, the calm advantage was $56 per
head.
Updates from Certified Angus Beef • www.cabcattle.com/newsroom/cab-insider A subsidiary of the American Angus Association • www.angus.org
MARKET UPDATE
January fed cattle prices are normally choppy and so far we’re seeing that
pattern in 2021. A primary difference this year, compared to 2020, is that last week’s average price is $14/cwt. lower, the same discount as the 5-year average. The brighter side is that packers continue to harvest fed cattle at a rapid pace. Last week’s 509,000-head total is a 5-year record for that week. This pace is what we want to see in the near term, with the industry’s need to work through aggressive fall placements against 1st quarter finishing dates. Large fed-cattle supplies will, however, limit upside potential for cash cattle prices in the near term, as February is typically the lowest beef demand month of the year.
Weekly Slaughter Fed Cattle Price Steer Carcass Wt CAB cutout Choice cutout Select cutout CH/SE spread CAB/CH spread This Week
651K $112 921 $225.78 $208.95 $196.48 $12.47 $16.83 Previous year 633K $124 905 $228.55 $211.61 $260.68 $4.93 $16.94
Basis remains weak with the February Live Cattle contract $2/cwt. premium to last week’s cash price. This doesn’t inspire cattle feeders to pull finished cattle forward in the marketing schedule. However, if corn input costs aren’t hedged, then feeders are more likely to get finished cattle sold to avoid increasing cost of gain during the least efficient final days on feed. Carcass cutout values appear to have found a short-term low in the first full week of January. This was a bit earlier than expected, as it’s normal to see softer prices into the middle of the month before boxed beef values begin to gain a little momentum heading into February. Boxed beef prices may not advance to a high degree through February, since weekly carcass counts will be larger than a year ago given larger front-end cattle supplies. Limited restaurant trade continues to linger with Valentine’s Day approaching. This restriction on the market may keep a lid on any holiday ribeye buying that tends to provide lift for cutout values during this period. Ribs were the only cheaper CAB primal from the cutout last week, yet heavy ribeye rolls were $0.40/lb. higher than the same week last year. End meat demand is seen most recently with many chuck and round items gaining slight price advances. Several items remain priced below a year ago from the ends of the carcass, so advances are relative. CARCASS VALUE SHIFTS Breaking down the total carcass cutout value by the dollar contribution of each primal reveals some of the anomalies for 2020. The table shows each of the beef primals with the percentage of carcass weight contributed by each. The familiar “big four” primals (loin, rib, chuck and round) certainly weigh the most and easily contribute the most to carcass value. Brisket, plate and flank primals combine to account for just 15.5% of the total.
The large shift to retail business, accompanied with stifled restaurant and export trade, subtly show in the shifts in dollar contributions of each primal. Where customers purchased beef influenced which beef cuts outperformed or underperformed last year. It’s no surprise then that the chuck and round primals contributed an additional 1.1% and 1.3%, respectively, to the annual CAB cutout value in 2020. Retail demand was key to those increases, but lackluster demand for middle-meat items is just as much a factor in end meats capturing a bit more of the cutout dollars. This is evidenced as we look at the rib contribution, which slipped by a mere half of a percent on the year. Ribs didn’t cheapen, year-on-year, but the advance in end-meat pricing outpaced ribs such that the chuck and round pulled slightly ahead in the total cutout makeup. The loin decline, however, is a bit easier to understand since the highly valuable tenderloins suffered as much as any subprimal beef cut because of lost restaurant business. The 0.5% smaller loin contribution, along with the rib decline, shouldn’t be exaggerated but they are telltale signs of the year’s abnormal demand pattern. Downward pressure was also noted on the smaller brisket, plate and flank primals. Each of these suffered in varying degrees the demand losses at the restaurant level while the latter two were also impacted in the 2nd and 3rd quarters by lost export demand. Finally, as we get to the meat of the story, let’s take a quick look at premiums for each primal by quality level. The Choice/Select spread was narrower last year, falling $5/cwt. from the prior year to average $10.40/cwt. in 2020. This is a significant annual decline but the latest average is much closer to the 2016-2018
Primal
Loin
Rib
Chuck
Round
Brisket
Plate
Flank
2020 CUTOUT SUMMARY
% of Carcass
% of CAB Carcass Value
Change to Cutout Share CAB% Premium to Choice
21.3%
11.4%
29.6%
22.3%
5.0%
7.1%
3.4% 28.8%
19%
23.9%
18.4%
3.9%
4.5%
1.7% (0.5%) (0.5%) 1.1%
1.3%
(0.6%) (0.6%) (0.2%) 11.5%
7.5%
6.1%
3.8%
5.6%
8.0%
4.0%
annual average of $10.82/cwt. The 2019 average of $15.46/cwt. had a lot to do with the Tyson plant fire disruption. That being said, the lower Choice premium in 2020 represents a return to normalcy if that can be said of anything on the year. In that last Insider, we pointed to the higher CAB cutout over Choice to sum up the year so we don’t need to rehash all of that. Yet it bears mentioning that the CAB loin, rib and chuck primals had larger premiums by 4.4%, 2.8% and 3% compared to Choice in the prior year.
CORN COST WILL INFLUENCE WEIGHTS AND GRADE The latest USDA corn supply updates included several adjustments, but the net effect was a stocks-to-use ratio lowered from 11.5% to 10.6%. The lower U.S. corn supply estimate combines with South American drought conditions to virtually guarantee a higher corn price range for the foreseeable future. Historically, higher corn prices have not automatically driven cattle feeders to reduce days on feed and finished cattle weights. However, current breakeven calculations are generating cost-of-gain estimates ranging from $1.00/lb. to $1.15/lb. depending on location and other feed costs. With last week’s fed cattle trade averaging $1.10/lb. it’s evident that the value of an additional pound of gain at the end of the feeding period is of little advantage. For much of 2020, the industry suffered from excess carcass pounds per head due to the backlog of cattle. Late December data shows combined steer and heifer carcasses still 14 lb. heavier than a year ago. Feedyard placement data suggests a quickening pace of carcassweight decline as we work through large front end cattle supplies in the 1st quarter. Spiking feedyard cost-of-gain figures should add fuel to this faster carcass weight decline, as some feeders will be incentivized to market cattle more expeditiously. The contrary factor to these dynamics is an increasing cash cattle market and/or weak basis, both of which would push marketing bias farther out on the calendar.
From a carcass-quality standpoint we’ve seen a plethora of over-fed cattle in recent months. The added days on feed have pushed quality grades in 2020 to record seasonal highs. Lighter carcasses, especially in April and May, will pull quality grades lower as we head to the normal, annual lightest weights in May. This is negative to high quality product supply in that important demand period, but will have a notably positive effect on the Choice/Select spread as well as CAB and Prime carcass premiums. The other side of that coin will be fewer yield grade 4s and 5s, plus fewer discount carcasses exceeding 1,050-lb. grid limits.
by Miranda Reiman
It may be easier to explain away why you don’t have marbling in the herd than it is
to get it. Some say that’s the origin of the popular “urban legend” in the Angus breed: high marbling potential is for “terminal” cattle, because they don’t make good mamas. You can’t have both in the same herd. But you can, as more and more commercial Angus herds across North America are proving with data and profit. Recent research suggests any theories to the contrary were simply created by those who have not made much effort to select for carcass traits and thus describe their herds as “maternal.” “Selection for Marbling and the Impact on Maternal Traits,” a research paper by Virginia Tech Extension animal scientist Scott Greiner and graduate student Jason Smith, explores the topic. Marbling has a slight relationship “with most of the traits that we associate with cowherd productivity,” Greiner says (see Table 1 below). Terminal and maternal traits can “coexist.” The first step to building a productive cow is to get her bred and bred early, and scrotal circumference is an indicator of fertility The first step to building a productive cow is to get her bred and bred early, and scrotal circumference is an indicator of fertility. Decades ago, some fairly popular and high-marbling Angus bulls happened to score low in that indicator, but that was just coincidence, according to all evidence. Both small-scale studies and actual analysis of the expected progeny differences (EPDs) for marbling and scrotal circumference found no association between the two traits. Nor should marbling ability impact the onset of puberty. “Age at first calving” is often used to determine if a female will get pregnant during a normal breeding season. One study indicated no relationship and another said an increase in a full unit of marbling would extend age at first calving by 10 days. “A breeder that makes a 0.25 unit improvement in marbling EPD would be expected to increase age at first calving by less than three days,” authors Greiner and Smith state. There is no correlation between marbling and heifer pregnancy in the Angus database. “Angus sires are highly sought after amongst commercial producers due to their ability to excel at calving ease while they maintain or improve carcass traits,” the paper says. The limited research highlights possible positive impacts, such as increased marbling in tandem with calf survival, lower birth weight and better calving ease.
