Best of the Breed Winners Announced, Ultrasound sorting enhances Angus genetics

by Steve Suther, Certified Angus Beef

The largest purse ever put up for a beef value contest--a total of $244,500--was awarded Jan. 29 to 26, to Angus producers and feeders at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association 2003 Cattle Industry Annual Convention and Trade Show in Nashville, Tenn.

The "Best of the Breed" (BoB) Angus challenge was announced at the 2001 Summer Conference in Denver, Colo., and began taking entries that September. Corporate sponsors are Agri Beef Co., Allflex USA, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB), Farmland National Beef (FNB), Merial SureHealth(R), and Drovers. Cattle were harvested at the FNB plant in Liberal, Kan., and contest winners were evaluated by average beef value per hundredweight of carcass on a set contest grid. Amy Fahsholtz served as contest coordinator.

All of the grand prize winners came from Kansas or Nebraska, and all were sorted at least once by ultrasound technology patented by the organization that came out in first place. Winning the $100,000 top prize was Kansas State University (KSU) Ag Research Center-Hays (ARCH), with an entry of 80 steers from registered Angus bulls worth an average of $132.05/cwt. of carcass. They graded 100% Choice or better with 91 percent qualifying for the Certified Angus Beef (R) brand, including 32 percent Prime, and six percent qualified as Farmland Angus Beef(TM) . There were no discounts of any kind.

"Our herd is about 60 percent Angus, and we've worked with Dick Janssen at Green Garden Angus on sire testing and ultrasound evaluations since 1989," said ARCH animal scientist John Brethour. Most of the steers were sired by Green Garden bulls, either from the ARCH herd or purchased from Roy Soukup of Ellsworth, Kan. Twenty were purchased from Martin Bland, Luray, Kan., sired by bulls from Gardiner Angus Ranch of Ashland, Kan. ARCH cows carried genetics from several Kansas Angus breeders.

Approximately 280 steers were evaluated by ultrasound in selecting contest entries, Brethour said. The steers were fed a ration based on grain sorghum with boosted protein levels from soybean meal, and no growth implants were used.

Winning $50,000 for reserve champion was Wickstrum Farms, Westmoreland, Kan., with an entry of twice as many steers (160) that came within 13 cents of the top, at $131.92/cwt. All came from Wickstrum cows bred to registered bulls from Fink Angus, Manhattan, Kan., and were fed on the farm.

"We had no idea our cattle would do this well," said Larry Wickstrum, "but when the first sale group went 100% Choice with no [Yield Grade] 4s, we knew that didn't happen every day." BoB rules limited entries to two sale groups, so having to sell a large second group resulted in a few Yield Grade 4s overall. Still, only one steer did not grade at least Choice, and 90 percent made CAB, including 37 percent Prime.

"We could have entered a lot more," Wickstrum said. "When we were sorting by ultrasound, we weren't even halfway through what we planned to scan when we had the 160-head pen full." He never uses growth implants, and the cattle were fed a ration of mainly corn, wheat midds and sorghum silage for about 105 days. They were about 14 months old when harvested in May.

The next three positions for overall value were claimed by Richard Bossen and family, Arcadia, Neb., on Angus type steers of unknown genetic background from the Sandhills region, sorted initially and to outcome group by ultrasound. All of the Bossen cattle were SureHealth(R) certified, as about a third of all BoB cattle were.

The third-place overall pen of 80 achieved an average value of $131.17/cwt., with a contest high 37.69% Prime within their 84% CAB acceptance overall. Had they managed an extra $.89/cwt. in average value, this set would have won a $100,000 Merial bonus, which went unclaimed because the KSU cattle did not qualify.

Bossen operates a 6,000-head feedlot and buys 12,000 Angus-type cattle each year, from within 100 miles of the central Nebraska yard. Ultrasound sorting is a matter of routine for the business, so it was no problem to sort out the BoB entry pens, Bossen said. All of the steers were implanted with growth promotants on arrival but not reimplanted.


"The Kansas Beef Council supported the research that made this possible," Brethour says. "They upgraded our equipment three years ago and asked us to develop technology to go upstream and sort six-weight cattle to outcome groups. This proves that we are able to do that. But I really have to credit the American Angus Association for a program that has been immensely effective in improving carcass quality in their breed.

"My colleagues often say you can go premium Choice and Prime, but you're going to have over-fat cattle," Brethour notes. "This shows that's not true, you can have quality without the external fat. My proportion of Yield Grade 2s to 3s was the same on Primes as on our CAB cattle." In fact, these were the only BoB cattle to avoid YG 4 and 5.

Bossen's second-high pen of 80 ($130.87) was Region VII Champion, and his son-in-law Bill Garrelt's 80 steers ($130.58) were the regional reserve winner.©