Carcass without Compromise
Carcass without Compromise is an expression we’ve been using for a few years now. We feel this terminol-
ogy represents our program strongly and the goals we are trying to accomplish.
In our eyes, the perfect scenario is to have a herd full of 5.5 frame cows that are sound structured, fertile,
docile, and the udder quality consistently great for at least 10 years of the animal’s life. We strive for her to
raise a calf that is born at a moderate birth weight, wean at a high percentage of the cows body weight with
optimal milk, convert feed to pounds of gain more efficiently, and lastly, harvest that calf as a Prime, Yield
Grade 3 carcass with a live weight of 1,350 pounds.
We are not trying to convince anyone that all of our cows fit this description, we have a lot of cows that are
smaller than a 5.5 frame and a lot of cows that are larger than a 5.5 frame, but this is where we would like
to see our average because these are the animals that have worked the best for us. We do our best to make
our cows thrive with no supplement in a harsh environment to weed out the cows that aren’t as fertile, so
we can keep more replacements of the cows that thrive easier and harvest the ones that do not. We talk a
lot about udder quality, and every mating starts with this selection. This is a trait that is highly heritable and
more important than any highly heritable trait, if a calf can’t get up and stick his nose in the flank and find
a teat like his natural instincts are telling him, we have a problem. Most likely nobody is around to help as-
sist with calving or nursing on a mature cow and she just as well have been open so we don’t have as much
feed expense in her if she can’t produce a live calf anyways.
Birth Weight is something that can definitely go too far either direction. Too far either way can have a poor
result with calf vigor, so we like to keep it in the middle and target the 75 to 85 area on a normal year, a
cow can have a pretty big calf with no assistance, a 4.0 birth weight EPD bull is nothing to be afraid of on a
mature cow.
The Angus breed has accomplished a lot when it comes to the ability to bend the performance curve and
have a high performing, highly efficient animal that stops growing when we want them to and maintain a
moderate framed mature size.
The ability to pull these selections off successful is very difficult as a breeder. Since pounds are now worth
more, $Beef has a lot of weight coming from carcass weight and performance, instead of quality grade. A
larger framed animal is more likely to have a higher Carcass Weight, so there are a lot of animals out there
with a high $B value that is made off of performance and carcass weight, versus a high marbling EPD that
will increase the % Prime and % Choice in your calf crop. $Beef is a formulation of Post Weaning Perfor-
mance and Quality Grade/ Yield Grade. Strict selection for this can result in an animal with a lot of growth
that gets too large framed, but also can result in an animal with no fat as well. In a terminal situation, this
is a great tool. If you keep replacement females, they will eventually be larger framed mature cows, with
less fleshing ability, and the milking ability seems to rise with that result as well. So we encourage people
to use this tool, while keeping frame size, fat, and milk in the optimal categories. This is something that
we try to do with every mating, and if you look through the catalog, there are a lot of animals that are high
$Beef animals with optimal milk, fat, and mature size. This is what we mean when we say Carcass without
Compromise, having higher marbling, higher Ribeye and Carcass Weight cattle, without the antagonisms of
larger framed animals with less than desirable fat cover.
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