WHAT HAPPENS NEXT???
John Holden
Westwind Ranch Valier, MT 59486

My family has been breeding Hereford cattle for over 50 years. When you get to thinking about it, that is almost a quarter of the time our country has been in existence. This could only happen in a free society. You won’t see any livestock breeding programs of enduring quality in a country run by a dictatorship.

Since their inception, we have been using performance testing, EBV’s (Estimated Breeding Values) and EPD’s (Expected Progeny Differences) in the selection criteria for our breeding programs. Right now, some of my cattle are way better than their EPD’s indicate, and some are not as good as their numbers would have you believe. There is an old saying, “that figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.” At present, the Hereford breed does not have the mass of data that the Angus breed does. This is due to smaller numbers of cattle in our breed. Plus, less use of proven AI sires. We just need more time and data to sort things out.

However, if you just breed cattle by computer, you could end up like the sheep that had the “spider syndrome”, which brings me around to visual selection. i.e., “The Show Ring.” Years ago, in the late 70s and early 80s I judged Polled Hereford cattle all over the country. I judged at the Calgary Bull Sale, the PI in Portland, Cow Palace in San Francisco, Denver Pen Bulls, Kansas City Royal, and others. At that time, all you had to do was line them up according to height and you looked pretty smart. My judging career ended when I put the future National Champion heifer fourth in class at Salem, Oregon, because I thought she was too big and masculine.

Right now, I think we are on the verge of going back the other way on frame size in beef cattle. I wouldn’t be surprised to see us go back to frame score 4s. The reason for this being high priced cereal grains. The livestock feeding and packing industry has been predicated and based on cheap feed. The advent of biofuels is going to change that. Biofuels are here to stay. They are both environmentally and politically correct. Crude oil prices are down in the short term, but that could change over night if we have some disruption in mid east production.

The discovery of big oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico is problematic at best. The ocean is over 4,000 feet deep where they have to drill, and then it is another 10,000 feet to the oil. Just think what a hurricane would do to that. They can’t even anchor their drilling platforms.

Canada is going to export a large share of their canola crop to Europe for biodiesel. The high price of fuel over there evidently justifies their use of Canadian canola. Pig farmers in Ontario are going out of business due to higher feed costs. Canada is putting ethanol plants on line, too. Higher feed costs will force Canadian and American feed lots to want cattle that can finish quicker and be harvested earlier. We will see more cattle fattened on grass.

The by products from ethanol production are low in energy and can only provide up to 40% of a feed lot ration. Right now, DNA testing for tenderness and intra muscular fat is being touted as the answer to our problems. Just remember, over half the beef sold goes for hamburger. It doesn’t have to be tender when you grind it up. I’ve often said that the Lord made cattle breeding complicated just enough to frustrate man. About the time you get it figured out somebody will change the rules. There is an old saying, “The eye of the master fattens the cattle.” A good cowman will select cattle that do well in their environment. Fortunately, we still have a lot of good cowmen left in the cattle business. However, change is coming, you can bank on that.
It is going to be interesting to see where we end up.

The Montana Hereford Tour made a stop at Westwind Ranch on September 25, 2006.