what true line means to you?

Awesome average cow.

Tru-line success would mean to me,
no more need for a pedigree

...................................................... ..................................................Shoshone SX 99-1702 (1987)
............................................................................Shoshone SX 121-1012 (1990)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 47-1012 (1982)
..................................................... Shoshone SX 144-3116 (1993)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 73-7103 (1983)
............................................................................Shoshone SX 73-3116 (1986)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 64-3111 (1984)
....................................Shoshone SX 164-6159 (1996)
.........................................................................................................Shoshone SX 64-1702 (1982)
............................................................................Shoshone SX 99-1702 (1987)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 23-1701 (1978)
.......................................................Shoshone SX 99-6159 (1991)
....................................................................................................... Shoshone SX 88-6310 (1985)
............................................................................Shoshone SX 88-6144 (19
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 75-6123 (1986)
..........Shoshone SX 164-6336 (2002)
....................................................................................................... Shoshone SX 99-1702 (1987)
............................................................................Shoshone SX 121-1012 (1990)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 47-1012 (1982)
..................................................... Shoshone SX 144-3116 (1993)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 73-7103 (1983)
............................................................................Shoshone SX 73-3116 (1986)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 64-3111 (1984)
.....................................Shoshone SX 144-6373 (1996)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 36-2702 (1978)
............................................................................Shoshone SX 64-1702 (1980)
....................................................................................................... Shoshone SX 36-1702 (1980)
.........................................................Shoshone SX 64-6357 (1988)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 67-2712 (1983)
............................................................................Shoshone SX 67-6333 (1985)
........................................................................................................ Shoshone SX 62-6320 (1983

Mike,
I decided to put this under what Truline means to me, as it seems to roll with the flow here...

Mikejd4020 started a topic "Question for Mr. Leonhardt" :

I have been watching and learning here for over a year now. My question has to do with your breeding philosophy with cattle and how much of an impact raising sugar beets had upon it.

When you look at a good beet field every plant looks nearly the same, perfectly straight rows, all the same height, hopefully a stand like a picket fence. All beets about the same size. Did the quest for good beets have an impact on how you looked at breeding cattle?

Mike

Thanks for your willingness to watch and learn here with an open mind Mike, we'll try not to let MK lead you too far astray. Although there are many parallel principles between raising beets and beef, my breeding philosophy didn't evolve from just raising sugar beets, but from a lifetime of farming in general from the horse and buggy days to space flights and I-phones....which means I must be over a 100 years old.

To elaborate on your specific questions, first let me say I suppose the sugarbeets in a beet field look nearly the same to an "outsider", similar to the way a herd of cows might look to someone when driving by on the highway seeing them grazing in a pasture.....they are all just cows. But to the "insider", not all beets (or cows) are about the same size....there are hundreds of different varieties, types and sizes.

Like cattle, beets range from large, high tonnage "stock" beets used for feedstuffs to smaller "high sugar" varieties with less volume or mass tonnage, like Holsteins & Jerseys, one is unlike another. While uniformity is preferred, even within each hybrid variety, there are bigger and smaller roots.depending on the available space, soil fertility and seasonal time they have to grow..... with different maturity ranges as the tops shrink back and the roots begin to store sugar for overwintering dormancy. All is not so sweet in the sugar business as it might appear, and the beta plant breeders also face many challenges which can be correlated to cattle breeding.....we just can't establish prepotency in all the traits of economic importance.

For those who may not be familiar with the sugarbeet industry, over the last 60 years well over half of the privately owned sugarbeet processing factories have closed. Most of them were built in the early 1900's and no new sugar factories have been built for decades. Over time there hasn't been enough profit in the sugar business to support both the grower/producer and the corporate processor/refiner's expected return on investment. Today's old surviving but renovated/remodeled factories have been purchased by the growers who now operate them as "farmer owned cooperatives".....like the one adjacent to my farm here in Lovell or in your area of Sidney, MT......following the vertical integration footsteps of the largest sugar producing area in the USA, the Red River Valley, who's growers puchased the Sidney facility and sugar allotment from Holly Sugar.

Much of the demand for sucrose was replaced with high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, natural sugar is often proclaimed to be bad for our health. Our government abandoned acreage allotments in the 70's, and developed import quotas on the world's cheap dumping ground prices of sugar in order to preserve what's left of our domestic sugar industry. These legislative results have been a continual battle between the domestic sugar producer/refiners and the large domestic bulk users like General Mills, the candy and bakery businesses, etc. These remaining competitive refiners bag their generic, natural, pure sugar under many different brands or marketing labels. Our local factory just finished processing the 2012 crop after operating 5 1/2 months....some of the beets werre stored in piles longer than it took to grow them. So today's acreage & sugar quotas are limited to the regional factory's ability to process the beets in a timely fashion before the beets deteriorate while the molasses desugarization facility may operate all year long.

And so here I am, stuck in this rut of raising products that are proclaimed by many to be "bad" for our well-being...... beef, sugar and beer barley. Too old now to change my ways, one would think that I should'a changed my occupation to something else that I would not really want to do, so I didn't. In 1983, I vowed to do everything I could do to improve the efficiency of beef production beginning with the "seed". Whether the quest is to raise good beets, or beef, I was recently sent a book entitled "Since Nobody's perfect, How Good is good enough?" In any competitive business, I'm sure we must be "good enough" to survive, and beyond that, it all depends on our personal ambitions.

As you know, farmers/ranchers are seldom satisfied with "good enough", always looking for ways to improve their production....and of course, improving our own profit seems to be everyone's bottom line or motive which can be difficult. We are continually bombarded with a vast array of new ideas and "products" offering hopeful promises to help us improve our production. The ongoing problem is that when competitive increases in production outstrip demands in the marketplace, narrower profit margins tend to result in expansion in order to improve efficiencies/profit......swallowing up the so called "family farms". Like it or not, change is inevitable, disrupting any complacency.....if there is a dollar to be made somewhere, someone will figure out a way to make it.

For exampe, in the earlier years, sugar processors bred their own seed with emphasis on those characteristics which favored the processor with higher degrees of purity and fewer adulterants.....salts which when combined on a molecular level do reduce the sucrose extraction rates below the then commonly acceptable rate of at least 85%.. Back then, the growers were paid on a per ton basis times a sliding scale based on the collective average cossette sugar content of the ENTIRE factory district's sliced beets during the campaign. Of course each grower's self-interest emphasized "tonnage over quality" which resulted in an increase in the use of nitrogen which produced more tonnage but too much also increased the "impurities" which reduced the extraction rates effecting the processor's profitability. It was about like the cattle business where we sell our cattle based on an average market price so we tend to want to sell more weaned pounds, and let the feeder and packer speculate about the quality as determined by the USDA's grading standards.

Consequently, with the government being involved with sugar programs, this "conflict of interest" was resolved during the 70's in Washington when the growers, processors and USDA met to determine a "fair" distribution of the sugar dollar. Technically very detailed, but essentially a sliding scale of a 60/40 split of the wholesale sugar dollar was developed based on each INDIVIDUAL growers sugar content or extractable sugar produced per acre. Finallly, each grower would get paid in accordance with what he individually produced. The growers and processors formed joint research committees to evaluate the available hybrid seed varieties in side by side comparison trials under each factory district's environment to optimize both parties economic interests.

Of course intitally each processors own plant breeders were competitively biased against any other processors varieties....about like our cattle breeds competing against each other. But over time a private beet seed industry has evolved into non-affiliated highly competitive groups of about a half dozen major worldwide sugarbeet seedstock suppliers. I remember during the 70's when all the newly imported breeds of cattle were being introduced, how the experts in the beef industry were predicting that only a few of the breeds would emerge successfully in the US beef industry as it clamored for more leaner beef. Many thought the English beef breeds would be the big losers.

Of course, back in the sugarbeet business, all this activity resulted in genetically improved specific, renewable hybrid varieties of sugarbeets......not so in the cattle businesss. In my own earlier years, beet growers argued over the price the processors were charging for their seed, about $5.00 per acre. Now that we are also the processor and no longer producing our own seed, as growers we are paying upwards to $300.00 per acre for approved varieties of seed for our specific regions due to tech fees, research & development, etc.....a pricing structure similar to the way the seed to produce $7.00 corn costs upwards to $300 a bag. Some days I wonder if growers are losing or gaining, however, modern beet seed was developed from multi-germed segmented seed to a mutated monogerm seed which allowed space planting.....and intensive hand labor is no longer required. The crop is now grown completely mechanized, going from single row mechanical harvesters in the late 40's to up to 12- row self-propelled harvesters today that cost as much as a "family farm".

Progress is a demanding and expensive tyrant. The only reason the beef business hasn't gone the way of the dairy, pig or poultry industries is because of the very nature of the beast. Instead, the concentration to a few major packers, large feedlots, registered societies, academia, etc. are all exercising their power to force commercial producers to breed cattle to meet their specifications or be discounted in the marketplace. The registered beef cattle industry is the only one I know of that isn't concerned about measuring "inputs". There is some talk about cow efficiency, the backbone of the commercial producer, but all the other segments actually don't care one whit about cow efficiency....cow herds are basically the sorted by-product of all these other self-interests. It isn't any wonder beef cow numbers are reported to be the lowest in 50 years.....and yet producers are required to pay a beef check-off to promote the consumption of beef while paying dearly for phenotypic illusions as "seed" in the cattle industry.

So I had to laugh when DV named a bull "beetseed", thinking that could be a synonymous beginning of an expanding movement whereby commercial cowmen would learn how to better control their own economic destiny by selectively choosing the proper genetics to raising their own "seed" to produce more efficient "cow factories" in order to be a survivor. That was optimistic thinking. It still sickens me to witness all the stupid things the mainstream registered cattle industry continues to do that is actually counter-productive to improving beef production efficiency...... yet they continue to be supported by too many commercial producers.....but alas, that is the nature of the beast and it is one hell[ve job to tame it. Thus it is that I admire the Dylans, the Grassfarmers, the Hillys and all those others that are taking economic control over their own production.....and why I have been promoting the tedious and slow process of developing more pure and affordable strains for the past 30 years, eliminating all the traditional superfluous costs.

And so Mike, these are just a few of the reasons for the evolving formation of my breeding philosophy.....just a common farmer's reaction to all the wasted actions.

LL in the vicinity of profitable imperfection, finally free of the ambitious ratraces for monetary gain, where "good enough" leads to a less stressful, more affordable quality of life ...... and genuine genetic progress.

Thanks for the reply LL.

I was more so looking at your pedigree ladders, and thinking about self-pollinating soybeans, and soybean seed. Don't take it the wrong way, but it seems as you breed cattle very similar to the way they breed soybean seed, in a sense. I think it's truly brilliant, and simple.

I took part in 9 beet crops, as a driver, irrigator, and random tractor driver, helper. I remember one cold night, laying under a beet digger chopping at leaves to get a bearing out. Wondering to myself, "Where did I take the wrong turn on the career path highway to end up here.?" I think a lot of commercial herds, including my own, ask the same question about their cattle.

Mike

LL has a rebuttal to my "using the best in a closed herd to maintain the average" I am working on...I`ve been busy with things like watching UK upset MO in basketball...that`s how low we`ve sunk this year...beating Mo is an upset?
I`ll remove the salt shaker with the new post; just checking if Jon is reading regularly

MKeeney wrote:

LL has a rebuttal to my "using the best in a closed herd to maintain the average" I am working on...I`ve been busy with things like watching UK upset MO in basketball...that`s how low we`ve sunk this year...beating Mo is an upset?
I`ll remove the salt shaker with the new post; just checking if Jon is reading regularly

Not really an upset, but not good for my team!

MKeeney wrote:

LL has a rebuttal to my "using the best in a closed herd to maintain the average" I am working on...I`ve been busy with things like watching UK upset MO in basketball...that`s how low we`ve sunk this year...beating Mo is an upset?
I`ll remove the salt shaker with the new post; just checking if Jon is reading regularly

Mike , to follow the True Line format I would expect consistent play in Kentucky as well as Missouri . so I guess a true upset would be MO winning on the road . Do not some strains of livestock thrive from Canada to Florida ?
And to follow Wright who said " The difficulty lies not so much in knowing the principles as in applying them " . More application on MO's behave might have resulted in a different out come .

Jon

Quote :

MKeeney wrote:
".....as to peas in a pod, the functional TRULINE is the stablized center line, and the outlier above and below the line are close enough to center so that they are useful at least commercially , rather than culled...different than Falloon , using the outlier to move the center line up, and it would appear to me, different than Elimast, used to move the center line down... "

By now, my posts on KC must be getting about as redundant as Gavins monthly newsletters, but like a Timex watch we just keep on ticking giving the same time twice a day. Most of you here on KC know that I have long been a proponent of improving the "functional purity" of the parent stock in the beef industry..... the primary purpose of breed formation.....but I am generally ignored. I should have given up years ago.

We've always known that stabilizing "center lines" have always been contrary to the mainstream registered directions, who have always been focused on changing that "center line" as an indicator of progress.....usng the top outliers that deviate the most from the bottom.

Quote :

MK recently posted " I`ve long contended a closed herd reaches a point where it must use the "biggest and best" just to maintain the phenotypic average".

I disagree simply because the phenotype is the true result of the genotypes. However, I do agree with MK's posted clarification -

Quote :

"The Pinebank herd is one of my "proofs" that a closed herd reaches a point where it must use the outlier just to maintain the "average" performance...what is "cowherd performance"? After you have consumed all the feed {grass/hay} you grew on a given alotment, isn`t it the pounds of calf you produced from that grass, not how many lbs you produced per cow?"

Every individual animal is a "closed population". of traits. We all know beef production income minus costs = profit or loss, and yet the mainstream directions are full steam ahead to increase production ignoring the costs.

When I was younger and more ambitious, still an active participant working with the AAA's AHIR department, back when John Crouch was in charge of the Angus Herd Improvement Records, I was only successful on two fronts. I managed to persuade the AAA to identify those cows as well as the sires who were carriers of the monitored simple genetic defects....and with my interest focused on maternal values, the annual Sire Pathfinder Report was important to me. Since pathfinder cows are deemed to be the superior outliers, I also persuaded the AAA to list the number of pathfinder dams produced by a sire from the total number of known registered daughters a sire produced.

Chasing outliers, clearly my motives were to identify the percentage of pathfinder dams a sire produced from his overall production. There is a significant difference. In admiration of pathfinder status, I had overlooked the fact that herds with a large number of higher producing pathfinder cows also had an equal number of lower producing cows.....also overlooking the reality that this "pathfinder data" was accumulated from registered herd's "environments", not necessarily under lesser commercial environments. Theoretically, individual sire data is presumed to be derived from randomized populations, but of course it isn't so it is skewed from the very beginning. Although the data may be skewed, the bottom line was that I did learn that there were distinct phenotypic commonalities among pathfinder cows wherever or however they were produced.

To my disappointment, I was never successful in my attempts to encourage the AHIR department to measure the distributions of a sire's measured traits that comprised an average. I was told that there was just too much variation in the breed to measure distributions effectively, yet we still measure all the other traits without any concerns at all about "too much variation"......wow, I'm still perplexed by all that....garbage in, garbage out.

During the beginning of the "performance era", initiated by PRI (performance registry international) and BIF (beef improvement federation), some of you might not know that structured sire evaluation under commercial environments was abandoned during the late 70's because of the difficulties, time and cost, but mostly because of self-conflicting registered breed interests. Most of you know that within herd ratios and EBV's were replaced with national sire evaluation reports based on registered field data, that CAB was an outgrowth of the PRI certified meat sire program and that MARC has spent decades comparing breed differences and has developed across breed EPD's which can be utilized to change cattle populations with specific individuals.

By lumping all this measured data, cattle breeds and actual production together on a national level, I had to laugh when Kent recently posted - "It has been reported that the national WW has not increased in 10 years. Comparing the 90's to the 2000's levels shows a decrease in WW of 36 pounds, a decline in calving rate by 1.3% and an average loss of $47.76 per head. How much more improvement can we take?"

As the cattle industry evolves, there is one thing I am sure of, and that is - if improving functional purity has no place in beef production, there is absolutely no genetic reason to measure distributions of a trait average nor to maintain breed identity. During the past 50 years, the industry has spent a monumental amount of money collecting data. Contrary to improving functional purity, the industry and the AAA in particular has developed 24 individual average EPD values compared to the overall "average of the breed" trait by trait with numbers and ranking by trait. Recapturing some of my prior investments in the collection of this data, today my own primary use of all these measures is to analyze the trends of the industry's changing selecton directions and their consequential economic values.....doing this only in order to reaffirm the validity of my breeding philosophy.

With hindsight being 20/20, it may be worthwhile to take a half hour and travel back in time with me beginning 50 years ago to review the immense variation in the Angus breed.....by following a few of the more popular bulls during their sequential reigning eras. The presumption is that variation is "good", that these following percentile graphs and pertinent EPD numbers are relatively accurate in the identification of traits contributing to measured beef values. So I am using them to provide me with a means to determine my own number for a MVIB$ (maternal values influencing beef dollars). The 2012 breed average EPD center lines for these specific traits are: CED +5; BW +1.8; CEM +7; $W +26.24; SC +.49; ($EN +0.12 plus $B +52.56) = MVIB$ 52.68....the traits in RED are current and are below today's breed average:

Born in 1950, OB2, "the king of sires" in the 50's & 60's, CED +8; BW -6.3; CEM -18; $W -4.19; SC +.12; ($EN +73.99 plus $B +18.23) = MVIB$ 92.22




Born in 1960, Rito N Bar, base of leading peformance Rito's, CED 0; BW +1.2; CEM -16; $W +8.79; SC -.14; ($EN 56.85 plus $B 18.81) = MVIB$ 75.66




Born 1962, "Canadian Colossal" a "million $" erratic big bull popular in the 70's, CED -2; BW +.6; CEM -18; $W +1.31; SC -.18; ($EN +53.63 plus $B +15.19) = MVIB$ 68.82




Born 1963, Lodge of Wye, a $250,000 bull, reaching fame in the 70's, CED +1; BW +.5; CEM +8; $W +8.16; SC +.23; ($EN 65.07 plus $B -20.07) = MVIB$ 45.00




Born 1967, RR Rito 707, leading popular performance sire , CED +5; BW +2.1; CEM -12; $W +18.18; SC +.42; ($EN 38.06 plus $B 10.21) = MVIB$ 48.27




Born 1976, Sayre Patriot, a twice Denver Champion "emulous" bred bul, CED +2; BW +1.0; CEM O; $W +12.04; SC +.70; ($EN +33.74 plus $B +33.34) = MVIB$ 67.08



Born 1979, Shoshone Shanigan, top growth sire in the breed's NSE Report, CED -12; BW +8.0; CEM +8; $W -18.12; SC +.56; ($EN +45.39 plus $B +43.08) = MVIB$ 88.47



Born 1987, Grubbs MacKenzie, Denver Champion at the peak of the frame craze, CED -5; BW +7.9; CEM +9; $W -20.01; SC -.14; ($EN -11.52 plus $B +78.43) = MVIB$ 66.91



Born 1978, QAS Traveler, the reg. industry's most widely used bull to fix the 80's "red" traits in the early 90's, CED +7; BW -.4; CEM +7; $W 21.14; SC +.06; ($EN 20.07 plus $B 32.94) = MVIB$ 53.01



Born 1986, EXT the most widely used bull in history for 5 years, 1996 thru 2000. CED +5; BW +1.7, CEM +13; $W 28.67; SC -.26; ($EN 19.53 plus $B 55.53) = MVIB$ 75.06



Born 2000, SAV Final Answer, by the numbers may be near the final answer, CED +13; BW -1.1; CEM +14; $W 60.14; SC +1.21; ($EN +7.44 plus $B +56.19) = MVIB$ 63.63



Any of us can interpret these dozen graphs any way we want to. MK, in my search of the sire summaries, I couldn't find any breed average animals ... nor any stationary center lined herds that might be considered "good enough" for you.....other than the Shoshone herd of course. As the industry mainstream goes through these correctional cycles, I did find what appears to be a prominent new winner, considered by many to be a contender for the 8th Wonder of the World. By the breed center line of numbers, Final Answer is certainly a remarkable achievement, a new "king of sires", an ultimate registered production machine with no"red" measured traits left to improve..... except perhaps to bring up the last two bars, $YG and $B.... to at least match the old 1950's "king of sires" MVIB$ of 92.22....and of course $EN are plummeting due to the demand for more maternal productivity.

I was thinkin' how useful it would be to know the distributions of those new finally answered "centered lines" just so we could improve their "functional purity".... so they could again rightfully be called "purebreds".....with the expectation that all the daughters could be pathfinder cows who would be significantly smaller than breed average, structurally sound for the unmeasured traits of endurance, stayability, mothering ability and longevity under commercial nvironments.....and all their progeny could make ranchers $33.90 more per calf weaned over today's breed average....so every segment could finally all live happily together....that is, of course, provided those commercial ranchers wouldn't spend more than all their calf profits buying "finally answered cattle".

I don't know if the final answers will solve Kent's reported national loss of $47.76 per head or not, remembering that the more we produce, the narrower the profit margins get. And remembering that for every outlier on one side of the center line, there are an equal number on the other side. It's just too bad that one man's gain is at another's loss, but I guess that's the way of the world we live in....I suppose .so we won't run out of things to do. That must be the reason God made pragmatics.

Meanwhile, back at the ole pragmatic Shoshone ranch contrary to chasing increased volume, handicapped by my phobia to inprove functional purity to achieve more similar "peas in a pod", while trying to improve the "red" traits for the commercial cowman, resolved that form follows functional selection......I proceeded with emphasis on functional maternal efficiency and identified inherent carcass quality. So, the "new Shoshones" began with a 28% IBC functionally pure bull born in 1982......#64, a hardy individual who later earned these EPD numbers and ranking:

CED +10; BW -2.2; CEM +11; $W 20.62; SC +.24; ($EN +45.29 plus $B 17.43) = MVIB$ 62.72



Definitely destined never to be acceptable by the registered mainstream....but holy smoley, the numbers say this functionally purebred bull, the core of the X-strain's own stabilized center line focusing on QUALITY over QUANTITY, commercial PROFIT over INCREASED PERFORMANCE....it is hard for me to actually believe that the MVIB$ match those of Final Answer's......and yet, commercial cowmen can buy dozens of these nearly "peas in a pod" purebred bulls who can produce cattle that can take care of their functional chores all by themselves in lesser environments.....and yes, there is more than one way to skin a cat..... finally a place where cowmen can buy dozens of more predictable purebred bulls for the unbelievable price of one Final Answer. I just hope my prized more prepotent cattle, systematically producing more from a whole lot less, and low prices don't put the "SAV type of cattle" out of the commercial cattle business ....

Alas, without promotional BS, that feat in itself would be the 9th Wonder of the World ....and who knows, my cattle may even have more diversified genetic usefulness than a Longhorn, Wagyu, Chianina, Simmental, Limo, Charolais, Belgian Blue, Herefords & Angus too. The bad part about all this is that I am starting to get smug as hell about my cattle ever since I discovered my MVIB$ numbers are as good as SAV's.... and now I'm beginning to worry that people won't root for me any more since my status has jumped from being an underdawg to being among the topdawgs again......I hope I don't have another genetic wreck to humble me a little more.

Speaking of wonders, diversity and humility, I still wonder why MK hasn't also raised a bunch of black/baldy cows after trying about everything else.....in a humble way he recently confided to me that the real reason he was a "baldy" at a young age was from his early frustrations trying to breed super cattle like PCC & LCC.....I would've guessed it was from too much testosterone in his "genes"...



LL, just wiling away another wintery day stirring the KC pot to prevent the porridge from burning

it seems to me $W needs adding to this formula...$W + $B -$EN= MVIB

how can $B be in plus number in this environment?

CURRENT CLOSE OUT

The Cattle Report estimates current profit or loss on cattle placed on feed 150 days ago. This report generated from industry averages attempts to simulate a typical close out based on prevailing purchase prices for a feeder steer 150 days ago. The close out assumes grain was purchased at market each month. Selling prices and interest rates are based on prevailing benchmark quoted prices. This chart will change weekly.

INPUTS..................................................TOTAL$.............................$CWT

750 # Feeder Steer OKC 150 days ago......1,086.08...........................144.81

Cost of Gain 500 pounds..........................645.06.............................1.29

Estimated Interest(Prime + 1%)................24.60
Resulting Breakeven

..........................................................1,755.74............................140.46
Current Texas Panhandle Cash................1,537.50............................123.00
Net Profit / Loss...................................-218.24..............................-17.46


mk, just hanging on by a hair

for what it is worth.

yesterday sorted through 55 heifers to sort 20 out.
Tom hand picked, I was to get gate cut.
after the sorting, looking at the both pens was like looking in a mirror.

the line that caught my eye.
QUALITY over QUANTITY, commercial PROFIT over INCREASED PERFORMANCE

I added the $EN and $B, curiosity inspired by an earlier post, a while ago through the generations for my own line:

1932- 48.19
1942- 45.28
1945- NA
1950- 71.81
1955-58.02
1958- 66.12
1960- 92.26
1963- 100.96
1966- 92.47
1970- 82.47
1973- 76.45
1976- 52.98
1980- 75.22
1988- 70.17
1996-1997- 3 sires 85.42, 57.70 and 51.10
2006- 2 sires 95.83 and 101.02
2011- 2 sires 114.10 and 112.87

“It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one.”

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan. The Impact of the Highly Improbable

larkota wrote:

for what it is worth.

yesterday sorted through 55 heifers to sort 20 out.
Tom hand picked, I was to get gate cut.
after the sorting, looking at the both pens was like looking in a mirror.

the line that caught my eye.
QUALITY over QUANTITY, commercial PROFIT over INCREASED PERFORMANCE

Typical loser talk. I figured you, being a Larson, would know that average just isn't good enough anymore. You've been following Keeny and his anti-performance crowd for too long if you're happy with gate cut. That's why I went to see leonhart and picked out THE BEST! Me and my customers aren't satisfied with average.

TD, better than Briann

I can't wait to gate cut what's left of the first gate cut.

MV...looking to rule the cattle world with TD.

MVCatt wrote:

I can't wait to gate cut what's left of the first gate cut.

MV...looking to rule the cattle world with TD.

No, no, no, you have to pick the BEST five out of this group, and then you'll own the top ten percent. If you ain't first, you're last.

TD, still better than Briann, roughly equal to Jon, but not as good as Chris.

As one of the more recent converts to the Keeneysian anti-performance cult, this doctrine of gate-cutting is still a hard pill to swallow. If you knew my past bull-sale-season rituals you'd understand. Dog-eared sale catalogs, multiple shades of highlighters, I was a zealot for data. Is a pilgrimage to Red Lodge the only way to understand this gate-cutting method? I'm hoping a one-day retreat to Reva (home of the Ristys) is close enough for now.

So tom when you go and pick them up you can take them by the other Larson's and show him just what a cow should look like, If you would like i can ride along to keep the PEACE.

Borling told me one of the readings that stuck with him from the humanities courses he took at the Air Force Academy was Camus’s “Myth of Sisyphus.” In it Camus argues that, in an absurd world, the poor hero condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a hill for eternity, always falling just short of the top, was ultimately a happy man. In recognizing and accepting futility, Sisyphus finds peace. In Borling’s variation, Sisyphus and the rest of us reach the top, but the outcome is pretty much the same.

“My view is that our job is to get the rock up and over the hill,” Borling said. “And once you do, the rock rolls down the other side, and what do you see? You see another hill. The essence of life is really just pushing rocks.”

Tom D wrote:

MVCatt wrote:

I can't wait to gate cut what's left of the first gate cut.

MV...looking to rule the cattle world with TD.

No, no, no, you have to pick the BEST five out of this group, and then you'll own the top ten percent. If you ain't first, you're last.

TD, still better than Briann, roughly equal to Jon, but not as good as Chris.

TD you need to set your sights higher then just better than Briann. hell I just keep getting better every day, easy when you start with average.

Larkota tired of picking or pushing leverites.

LCP wrote:

As one of the more recent converts to the Keeneysian anti-performance cult, this doctrine of gate-cutting is still a hard pill to swallow. If you knew my past bull-sale-season rituals you'd understand. Dog-eared sale catalogs, multiple shades of highlighters, I was a zealot for data. Is a pilgrimage to Red Lodge the only way to understand this gate-cutting method? I'm hoping a one-day retreat to Reva (home of the Ristys) is close enough for now.

Luke, the best thing that I've found to replace the data addiction and bull sale catalog habit is.........Fantasy Football. Ever since I learned that breeding MATERNAL cattle is about qualitative traits instead of quantitative traits, the EPD searches and data crunching don't matter that much anymore. But there is still a part of my brain that craves the analysis of data, and the sorting and ranking of individuals. I fill this void by playing fantasy football. If you thought your bull catalogues were worked over, you should see my cheat sheets before our league draft. This past year I got Hilly to play, now he's addicted too. I was thinking about starting a Keeney's Corner league this year. I know Larry is a big Wes Welker fan, and I think he's big on Colin Kapernick too. Hilly's more of a Russell Wilson and Randall Cobb kind of guy. Just like in their cattle breeding, Larry and Hilly pay more attention to the intangibles. Linda Keeney's an Aaron Rodgers fan, but I don't think it has anything to do with his playing ability.

TD

Tom D wrote:

LCP wrote:

As one of the more recent converts to the Keeneysian anti-performance cult, this doctrine of gate-cutting is still a hard pill to swallow. If you knew my past bull-sale-season rituals you'd understand. Dog-eared sale catalogs, multiple shades of highlighters, I was a zealot for data. Is a pilgrimage to Red Lodge the only way to understand this gate-cutting method? I'm hoping a one-day retreat to Reva (home of the Ristys) is close enough for now.

Luke, the best thing that I've found to replace the data addiction and bull sale catalog habit is.........Fantasy Football. Ever since I learned that breeding MATERNAL cattle is about qualitative traits instead of quantitative traits, the EPD searches and data crunching don't matter that much anymore. But there is still a part of my brain that craves the analysis of data, and the sorting and ranking of individuals. I fill this void by playing fantasy football. If you thought your bull catalogues were worked over, you should see my cheat sheets before our league draft. This past year I got Hilly to play, now he's addicted too. I was thinking about starting a Keeney's Corner league this year. I know Larry is a big Wes Welker fan, and I think he's big on Colin Kapernick too. Hilly's more of a Russell Wilson and Randall Cobb kind of guy. Just like in their cattle breeding, Larry and Hilly pay more attention to the intangibles. Linda Keeney's an Aaron Rodgers fan, but I don't think it has anything to do with his playing ability.TD

I think it has everything to do with her fantasy of his playing ability

865 miles today; that's what Tru-Line means to me.

Tom D wrote:

865 miles today; that's what Tru-Line means to me.

spreading like a wildfire....in control.