Defining and Selecting a Quality Cow Herd
Shaye Koester 00:05
Hey, hey, it's Shaye Koester and I'm your host and the founder of Casual Cattle Conversations, a global rancher education company that strives to bring honest thoughts and conversations from ranchers and leaders to other ranchers. Be sure to follow @cattleconvos on social media to have more in-depth conversations about the ranching business and lifestyle brought to you. If you're ready to take your operation to the next level and improve your lifestyle too, send me a message about my RancherMind group. RancherMinds are monthly roundtable discussions for ranchers to learn from peers and experts and leave the call with actionable advice to make changes on their own operations. With that, let's see who our guest is today, and what experience and advice they have to offer you to improve your own operation. Alright, you've been on the show before and you've given a lot of background on where you started and your involvement in the beef industry, but do you just want to give a brief touch on your background and experiences in ranching and selecting cattle?
Bill Rishel 01:19
Well quite simply, Shaye, it's pleasure to be visiting with you again, as always. As far as my background in the cattle business goes, I grew up on a general livestock farm. We fed some cattle and we had a cow herd. It was not large at any one time. In fact, originally the cow herd was commercial cattle and over time we grew that into a purebred outfit little by little. I went away and studied animal science at the university and was involved in judging and what I wanted to do was be in the registered Angus cattle business. All my past experiences led to certain theories and philosophies of what I believe I want my cow herd to look like, how I want them to perform and most of all that they do things in the right way to help assist my customers to be more profitable.
Shaye Koester 02:29
Well, thank you for sharing that. So you are very well known for raising high-quality cattle and having a very quality herd, what would be your definition of a quality herd?
Bill Rishel 02:44
I think the word quality needs some definition. Today, as certain carcass traits have become more meaningful and more valuable, that's quality. We talk about marbling, talk about fiber that's in the ribeye eat itself, the color, and the smoothness of those muscle fibers. They all lead into a quality product. But when you're talking about a cow herd, I like to think of all the more in terms of a cow herd that is highly functional. And by highly functional, I mean the feet and legs are quality, reproductive capacity, all of those things are very, very important to me, and that they function the way they should function at the end of the day. I want those cows to work for me and not constantly have me work for them. The effort and work that I want to put into a cow herd is overseeing the development of that herd. I want my work to be mostly about caring for them in the proper way with proper nutrition, best genetics, and everything we do. But all of this together. Yeah, in terms of how functional cattle are in terms of the soundness of people eggs and others and reproductive capacity. calving ease is included in that and when you do that, you have a herd that works for you and not you putting in all that extra labor effort and work because of problems that can be avoided. That's a quality cow herd. I think that the thing that I want to spend all my time with, as far as those cows are concerned, I mentioned some of them. And I want the work that I put into this cow herd to be centered around their care and health and nutrition and boosting the best genetics possible. So what I wanted to talk about is that when you talk about quality, in terms of the cow herd is this uniformity of the cows, putting all of these economic merit into these cattle, but have it in a very consistent basis, and not just some very good cows at the top. And that's true of whether it's the seed stock operation or the commercial cow-calf operation, it's incredibly important that we have a cow herd that is, well, to put it quite honestly the most of the best, which is what you had originally asked me to visit about. That is a lot of the definition of the most of the best in my opinion. There are two types of most of the best, it's the most of the best in an individual, but it's also the most of the best in a cow herd. We constantly strive to see how small we can make the scrap pile, and that's just using some very everyday crude lingo for meaning, make them as good as possible, as uniform as possible and as consistent throughout the hurt as possible.
Shaye Koester 06:47
Now, do you want to expand a little bit on uniformity? You've touched on it, but really how valuable that is that to be producing uniform cattle within the industry, or at least in your herd?
Bill Rishel 06:59
Yeah, well, it's incredibly important. From a seedstock perspective, or a purebred Angus breeder, the value of that uniformity is that there's a much higher percentage of your production, that is worthy of being purchased by your commercial customer to improve their cow calf outfit. So that uniformity is very important there. Many times you might see a handful of bulls that are very outstanding, and then more bulls that are just so so. Well, the outstanding bulls historically, always are very easy to sell. They bring a lot of money, but then your customer base does not have that depth to select from in order to improve their herd of cattle in these traits. So it's the goal or should be the goal of the seedstock producer to create that constant uniformity of those good kinds of cattle that push all the right buttons for the industry. Then the commercial man, if he embarks on that same philosophy, and constantly tries to improve that cow herd to make them as uniform, uniformly good, I should say as possible. Well, then, when they take that set of feeder cattle to town, how often do you hear somebody say if they're going through an auction market, and they say what a uniformly good set of cattle? Well, they're talking about the frame size, the uniformity, the cows were fertile enough that they bred early, and they kept in a tight period. And all of that leads to uniformity for that feedlot guy to buy an outstanding set of cattle that he thinks he's got to take back and hopefully make some money with. Uniformity is a very, very big deal in our industry that very few people ever talk about.
Shaye Koester 09:04
Well, absolutely. And I'm glad you touched on that. Because I mean, uniformity, it makes sense in each place in each segment when we talked about seedstock down to commercial, but also in the feedlot side. I think we can't forget how valuable it is throughout the whole chain.
Bill Rishel 09:20
Yeah, and not only that, but if you walk through a cooler at the packing plant, that uniformity is just as important in those carcasses when they're going down that rail.
Shaye Koester 09:32
Absolutely. Now, you've touched on it because I asked you to talk about quality and then you already tied that into how that is the most of the best. I mean, you've explained that and you went through explaining most of the best as an individual animal and as a herd. But how does each producer define what the best is for their operation? Or do you think it's most of the best from an industry standpoint.
Bill Rishel 10:00
It can vary from operation to operation. And one of those variables is obviously the environment that you raise your cattle in. So there are your selection parameters. I talked about phenotypes. For example, phenotypically, I think that structural soundness is that they have a hock that's properly constructed, that they have freedom of movement, that they have good udders, that they have calving ease, particularly in the heifers, Virgin heifers. All of those things are consistent for the seedstock and commercial man alike. They are constant across the spectrum. When you get into the genotypic component of these cattle, there can be some variation about what you would call uniformity or quality or the most of the best, a lot of that has to do with the environment that your cattle operation exist in. And in some cases, there are environments where these cattle, you know, are gonna struggle for a lot of forage. They may be in a climate where there's not a lot of rainfall and so the grass that they consume is, in larger areas, bigger acreages and covers lots and lots of miles. Those cattle have to travel lots of times a long way to gather up the roughage they need and also get to water. If you live in a part of the country where there's more rainfall and a little more of a lush kind of an environment, on average those individuals probably can select for a little higher performance or a little larger frame. These are minute differences to some degree, all of these cattle can either get too big or too small at some place to fit the industry. So I am a little more cautious about saying there's an ideal out there for everybody. But to me, that's more about the genotype of these cattle than it is those functional traits that I mentioned earlier. I think they're essential to everybody, no matter whether they're in the purebred segment or the commercial cow-calf segment.
Shaye Koester 12:32
Okay, so when you look at selecting cattle, I mean, there's genotype and phenotype to select off of, and oftentimes, you might be kind of stuck, because you might have a bull or a heifer that reads outstanding. But maybe she is a little straighter in her hock or maybe she does give up some of that rib depth. How do you balance that genotype and phenotype? How do you view when people say select for just one or the other?
Bill Rishel 13:10
Yeah, I think I know where you're going with that. I would say that if you really want this very functional quality cow herd, regardless of seedstock or commercial, I want to get my words right on this. That's just I think it's more important to keep your phenotype the way I described it. We're not talking body cavity shape here, we're not talking length or anything else. While those are very important to me, the thing that I think is key on your phenotype is there's less margin for error, because these cattle have to be sound. If they're gonna go out and do their job and if they're gonna do it, particularly in big country you do not want other problems. That creates work. That's a serious loss and you want calving ease. So you in this day and age with all the data and information we have, there's really very little excuse to have a calving difficulty in heifers because we have all this information available. So I see those kind of functional traits as non-negotiable. They need to be very, very good. The genotypic part of this component is what you think fits your environment. So if you can stand more weaning and yearling growth, so be it if that fits your operation. If it doesn't, and it causes you grief when getting these cattle bred back on the feed resources you have, then that's too big. So I would put parameters on those kinds of traits for somebody in the cow calf business, regardless of whether they're purebred or commercial and a purebred guy should be trying to design these cattle to do those things correctly for the commercial man that is his customer. So I hope that kind of answers your question a little bit. Yeah, and some of those are very functional traits. And I will tell you that over time, a hind leg that is too straight, and an udder that's bad, calving difficulties where the calves too big and you have too many problems at birth, and it creates more problems, re-breeding, all of those things will eventually sort themselves out. However, you have invested an enormous amount of money to get those cattle to that point in time and then you probably have not amortize the cost of putting into production a year, put them on a truck and haul them to the auction market to weigh them up, because they're a problem. So that's how I look at it. It's a matter of economics, as much as anything that we're trying to keep balanced and making these quality cattle that we're talking about. Alrighty, folks, we are going to take a quick break and visit with our friends at Neogen and thank them for bringing this episode to you. But let's hear what they have to say first.
Neogen 16:43
You are working to preserve the ground for the next generation, shouldn’t your cow herd be built for the future too? NEOGEN has developed a tool called Igenity Beef to help commercial cattle producers make genomic selections to advance their herd with each generation. Igenity Beef is an advanced genomic profile designed for crossbred commercial cattle, utilizing DNA to predict genetic merit in your herd, so you can select with confidence and improve your bottom line. Igenity Beef provides 16 critical traits on a 1 through 10 scale that aids in selection and management of commercial females to build your herd for the next generation. To learn more about how Igenity Beef can advance your herd, go to neogen.com or by calling 877.443.6489
Shaye Koester 17:41
You've touched on it a little bit, but what are some of the negative impacts the industry faces when you say, only select for phenotype and disregard some of those genotypic merits or vice versa?
Bill Rishel 18:13
That was like maybe one of the last questions that you had mentioned to me about talking about and I, my thoughts on that are this. I'm not sure that the industry cares and I'm not sure it's an industry problem. I think it's a producer problem. I think either those of us in the purebred end, and those in the commercial end, it should be the same to each of us, we should be concerned about it. Because those kinds of functional problems that we've been talking about, they cost money eventually. And anytime that you impact the bottom line of your operation, and I'm more cognizant of it for the commercial man than I am the purebred end of the industry. Because you have to be able to amortize the cost of putting these cattle in production, you want to keep them in production as long as economically possible. Therefore I look at it more as an individual enterprise problem more than an industry problem.
Shaye Koester 19:30
Okay, well, thank you very much for sharing that. Now, we talked about the bottom line and removing that bottom line. Is that bottom line that bottom 15% Is it 25%? I mean, depending on the herd size and how much room people have. Where's that bottom line for people to start making those improvements?
Bill Rishel 19:53
I think it's certainly an individual enterprise analysis and the reason I say that is I'll turn the question around a little bit. I for many years have heard the statement made that well, purebred breeders should only sell the top 50% of their bulls and cut the rest of them. That could not be farther from the truth. It is about what percent of your cattle do not qualify as the most of the best. And that's going to vary from herd to herd. So if you have a pretty good standard of what you want to supply your customer with as a seedstock producer, and then whatever percentage of those cattle from a soundness standpoint, from a growth standpoint, from the EPDs that they have, and that you feel comfortable that they fit the vast majority of your commercial customers to try to make their herd of cattle better and their product better. That's how you would decide what percent that you either offer for sale or a percentage call. And that's different in every herd of cattle. I think it's a huge mistake to try to paint everybody with the same brush, because that's that's just not the case. You should have a standard that you want these cattle to kind of qualify for. And those that qualify that you feel like can go out and actually help your customer be better. They're qualified. And if they don't do that, then they ought to be in a feedlot. So I hope that's a roundabout way of answering your question. Because that's really what's important. That's the most important part. I'll just bring in another thought process, here. There's a deal in the Angus breed called Pathfinder females. I don't know if you've ever heard of this or not, but it's on the Angus Association website and are called Pathfinder females. I was gonna just read this for the people who are listening to your podcast. The program identifies Pathfinder cows in herds, they have to be actively involved in HIR, for example, so they have to have good data and contemporary groups. And the first thing to qualify as a pathfinder female is that they must produce their first calf near their herds, average age for first calving. And then more specifically, the maximum age accepted for first calving of a Pathfinder is the within herd average for the first calving plus 30 days. So the within herd average is determined separately for each herd on HIR, because they have different calving periods. So once they've done that, and qualify for that criteria, then they have to maintain a regular calving interval. The maximum calving interval is like 365 days, plus 30 days divided by the number of calving intervals. And so to qualify beyond that their first three calves then must have an in herd ratio of 105 or higher for weaning weight. That is fundamentally a very good program. It's addressing reproductive capacity, it's adressing consistency of production and breed back. And there's a certain amount of performance incentive. So then let's look at what maybe is a little wrong with putting too much emphasis on this. I could show you a herd of cattle that has maybe at the very top of their Pathfinder cows, there be cows in there that are ratio going, say 110 or 115. Some could be more extreme than that. But I just want to use an easy example, because your herd is just like any single trait. When you look at the bell curve for that trait, a herd has a bell curve, and that's from the very top to the very lowest. So if you have Pathfinder cows that are in that 115 range for their weaning weight at the top, that means you've got cows at the other end that are 85 for that weaning weight. And this will be consistent no matter where the herd is or you know, however much time you spend and improving the quality. When you find a herd of cattle that has been selected over and over and over again, for consistency and uniformity, then that bell curve narrows up and those cows could be off from 105 to 95. Now that's talking about an ideal situation, that would be an extremely great herd of cattle, extremely uniform. And a very, very productive deal, just like we said, we're looking for that uniformity. But guess what, only the 105s, you don't have anything over that, they're the only ones that are gonna qualify as Pathfinders out of that whole deal. And that does not mean that the ones that are 95 are terrible cattle. In fact, in those herds were that selection pressure was placed on them to make them that much more uniform. Those 95s are better producing cows in many respects than some herds of cattle that would go from 80 to 120. On their ratios, and those 95 will be better than probably three fourths of the cows, some of them over 100 in those other herds. So you have to be careful how you how you use this data, and how you look at it, because I hope that makes sense for your listeners. But that is an extremely valuable lesson. And not to think that oh, yeah, they've got these Pathfinders that are, you know, 115 or 120, you automatically know there's cows in that herd that are that are 80 to 85 on your ratios.
Shaye Koester 26:41
Well, thank you very much for sharing that and bringing that into the conversation and having that with you. Because that does make sense. And that was a great scenario to show how all that works. So you've already kind of gone through every question I had for you, which is great. But another question that kind of came up is, you've talked about having that standard for your herd, and making sure that it's going to serve and help improve your the herd of your commercial customers. How did you go about making sure that your standard was going to be able to help your customers?
Bill Rishel 27:25
Well, I have to go back in history a little bit and it's a long way back. I'm getting a little long in the tooth, but I can remember as a much, much younger person in the purebred cattle business. And there was a point in time where my goal was to produce the next great Angus bull and I worked pretty hard at that and felt like we were on the right track. But remember this was long before he EPDs. We didn't have much data collection at all, just simple birth weights and weaning weights and yearling weights. A lot of people did not have any data or information to pay much attention to reproductive abilities of these cattle. Those that did it, did it on their own. And I got very discouraged about trying to find a way to constantly produce that really outstanding bull. That's when I decided that the thing we really needed to do in our herd and this is 40 some years ago, that we needed to figure out a way how to make the scrap pile smaller. I keep using that terminology because I think it's really easy to understand. When you talk quality, and I'm talking about a scrap pile, it's not total scrap but I mean they're gone to the feedlot instead of going out as as breed improvement, improving cattle. And I will tell you that once we apply that philosophy to peel off that bottom end each time at some level, what we thought we could afford to peel off and improve and replace them with at higher percent at the upper end. It's a constant moving target. It's a process that you never complete. If you think you've completed that process, you probably need to hang it up and just go on down the road. Because breed improvement is constant. If you're really serious about it, it's always one more bar higher. So when we decided that this was our goal, several things happened. All of the industry's great bulls that we produced that were recognized throughout the industry showed up just like cream coming to the top, when you separate it from the milk. Prior to that, we struggled to produce what we thought was, you know that outstanding bull and once we started improve the cow herd, by constantly pulling that bottom off and constantly trying to replace it at the top with better, better females, creating more uniformity, more consistency, all those really good bulls just showed up, it was automatic. So I think that's one of the very important things to understand is somewhat of this genetic recombination and all these cattle is just a matter of trying to mate the best to the best. And trying to make the most of the best again. That's where that philosophy comes from, it keeps coming back, because that's what you're trying to do. If you look at a performance pedigree today, on a nonparent, Angus, animal, bull or heifer, there's about 28 different traits that we're dealing with and our goal has been to try to have as many of those 28 traits within a genetic or within a parameter that we think as desirable. For example, we would rather have an animal with most of those 28 traits that's in the upper one quarter to 1/3 of the entire Angus population, then we would have an animal that's really outstanding, and five of those 28 traits, that's in the upper 1 to 10%. So that's another most of the best, if you will, because I think you understand or if I need to explain that more for your listeners. That's, that's an extremely important deal, because that makes sense to commercial cattlemen. How they can improve, they don't have to buy that really extreme big numbered or high dollar valued animal or whatever, with just a handful of traits that are really superior. But they'll make far more genetic progress over time and build a greater cow herd and more consistent cow herd by using those individuals that are at least the upper quarter to upper third floor a vast majority of traits and just at upper percent for a few.
Shaye Koester 32:49
Well, I think that makes sense. And I believe my viewers will understand that too. Thank you very much for sharing that. So far, you've answered all the questions, and I think you've very thoroughly explained your theory for most of the best. So is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up?
Bill Rishel 33:11
Well, trying to think you're what all that we did cover, we jumped around quite a little bit. There was one thing I think that I did mention, I believe that some of these phenotypes that are structural problems, whatever they may be, they do sort themselves out over time. But at there's a cost of that.
Shaye Koester 33:37
Yep! you talked about that.
Bill Rishel 33:39
That's a big deal. One of the things I think we should mention is that the data will show you at all of the breed associations, that the average lifespan of a purebred breeder in these breeds, it can vary from breed to breed some, but on average, the average time that some of these people were in the purebred cattle business will be somewhere in the neighborhood of five to eight years. Now we all know a lot of purebred breeders have been in it for a lifetime as well. And the important thing to understand here is that the vast majority of commercial producers are in it for a much, much longer haul on average than the average purebred producer. I think that's important to understand in that you don't build these good cow herds in such a short period of time. You you can both as a purebred and commercial producer and the right situation, you can buy into a very, very good set of females both purebred and commercially, but you have to know a little bit about that herd, you have to know something about their production and what they've done in the past and how those calves have sold. Otherwise it just takes a longer time to get that herd to that quality level you want it to be at and that needs to be understood by people because you just don't go out. And I think far too often, some of these traits that the industry has chased and perhaps a little too far, in terms of extreme growth, in terms of some of these dollar values in our breed, they can be destructive to, to a herd of cattle, and dollar B values in the Angus breed are a terminal value. Now, if you're a commercial producer, that sends all of your production to the feedlot, both heifers and steers, that's not a bad thing. Extreme terminal bulls can be very valuable to that proposition in in a herd of cattle where all the offspring are fed out and produced for the market. If you're going to be in this for the long haul, and you're raising your own females, you do not want to chase those kinds of extreme traits, because they are terminal, they do not take into account the reproductive capacity of those cattle, the efficiency of the reproduction. And at the end of the day, a live calf on the ground is one of the one of the most important performance traits you can have. Then the next thing is that those females have their hormones balanced right, just like the bulls should as well. And then at the end of the day, they go out and function like they're supposed to, in that producer's environment. So I think sometimes the commercial producers get drawn in to some of the fads and fancies of the purebred industry and some of these traits and, and, you know, it used to be we went through growth trends of too big or too small or to whatever did all that and now that we have data, and some instances, we're doing the exact same thing only we have data behind it. And that's even more foolish because we have the data that proves that it's not the thing to be doing, and we still do it anyway. That's what I struggle with. I just struggle with the fact that we still tend to go too far in a direction on a many, many of these issues, when we have so much more information and data that's meant to keep us kind of, you know, between the ditches. I think that's important for all of us to understand. I have a slide that I've used in some presentations, it is a picture of a NASCAR race, and of all people I am not a NASCAR race fan. But I will tell you that the picture just struck me so dramatically, is all these NASCAR's going at a high rate of speed and right over the top of them going the same direction was one NASCAR upside down over the top of all of them. And it made me realize that with the greatest drivers, the most powerful engines, the best tires, the best mechanics, you name it. When you're gone at a high rate of speed, you're all going the same direction. And sooner or later, some bad things happen. Well, we're doing the same thing with growth traits today, to some degree in this industry. It sounds good to have lots of pounds and sell pounds. We all need as much income as we can get, but if you're trying to build a cow herd while you're doing that, sooner or later, all going the same direction at this high rate of speed in this modern age of enhanced genomic enhanced EPDs. Sooner or later, there's going to be a wreck involved out there in the future just like this NASCAR picture I'm telling you about. And instead of the guy up in the stand waving a yellow caution flag, it's Mother Nature waving a yellow caution flag to the industry to kind of get your act together and make these cattle fit your environment is as best you can.
Shaye Koester 39:37
Well, absolutely, and I would agree with that. That was that was a lot and it all made sense. And I really appreciate your insight on that and I'm sure my listeners will too. But if that covers everything you wanted to share, I know that hits all the questions I had.
Bill Rishel 39:59
Well I hope that we've covered them, you're the boss.
Shaye Koester 40:05
I feel like you did a very good job covering all and them and a lot of extra too. So I really appreciate that.
Bill Rishel 40:13
Well, it's always a pleasure.
Shaye Koester 40:16
I always enjoy visiting with you as well. So, thank you again. I really appreciate it. I'm excited to put this one out. And that's a wrap on that one. Be sure to let me know your thoughts on the episode and if you have any further questions around the topic, take care and have a great day.
