14 | R.A. Brown Ranch | 03.08.17
03.08.17 | R.A. Brown Ranch | 15
Last year we made a huge investment and commitment to
better measure the feed efficiency and profitability of our
genetics for you our customers. We are confident that feed
efficiency is the next great frontier in beef cattle produc-
tion. Therefore we invested in a Grow Safe System to mea-
sure the individual feed intake and feed efficiency of our
replacement heifers and nearly all of our bulls. By selecting
for increased performance over the past 47 years of my life,
we have indirectly improved feed efficiency because sci-
ence has proven that gain and feed efficiency have a high
and favorable correlation of .73. However as we started
measuring the feed intake of each individual animal we
began to identify very significant differences in feed effi-
ciency. As a result we can now select for both rapid gain as
well as for the most efficient gainers and make significant-
ly faster progress. For 25 years our Mission Statement con-
tinues to say: “We are continually striving to improve the
efficiency of converting God’s forage into safe, nutritious
It is exciting that the an-
imals in this sale average
near the top of their breed
for $Profit of the hundreds
of thousands of animals an-
alyzed by the $Profit team.
INVESTMENTS
IN YOUR FUTURE
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY, $PROFIT & DNA
and great tasting beef to better feed His people.”
To more effectively measure feed efficiency and the profitability of our cattle,
we also invested in the $Profit Alliance that does a weekly genetic evaluation on
a huge database and is by far the best database we have found to give us multi-
breed genetic predictions for feed efficiency and $Profit. You will notice that both
of these are included in this year’s catalog. We paid to have the data analyzed on
over 80,000 animals that we and our R.A. Brown Ranch team have raised and
measured over the past 40 years. It is exciting that the animals in this sale average
$10,910 for $Profit (ranking near the top of their respective breeds) of the hun-
dreds of thousands of animals analyzed by the $Profit team. The Red Angus alone
average in the top 3%.
Let me make this clear. We also send all of our data every year to each breed
association and pay to have them analyze our data as well. In addition we pay to
DNA test nearly every animal we raise and sell in order to have the most accurate
genetic predictions with genomically enhanced EPDs. As a result we have the ge-
nomically enhanced EPDs from each association that we have printed in this cat-
alog. In addition, we print the multi-breed Feed:Gain EPD and the $Profit Index
that can be compared across breeds for each bull in our catalog. As a result we
are going the extra mile to have our cattle measured by multiple sources in order
to provide you with the best information possible to help you select the cattle that
will increase your profitability and sustainability the most.
