Mirror Image Farm

This is a bit tutorial but in order to get the commercial producer to understand the message that Braunvieh influence can make their herd more profitable it is necessary. The first point is ...
do you want to be profitable? If not - class is over.

These are tough times for the commercial producer. As a commercial producer there are several factors, goals, and selection criteria that we must take into consideration every day. Never forgetting what has worked in the past, researching for new methods, and being open to change & looking at the facts not the hype.
Raising cattle comes in as many methods as there are breeds. Cow/calf, seed stock, show ring, large or small operations, the one ingredient that must be present to succeed is profitability. Overfed cattle that may do well in the show ring but won't reproduce after their "show life" or won't grade & yield in the carcass don't pay the bills! The consumers of today will no longer except poor quality and every customer that every producer has is a customer that will define our success. EPDs and data collection can be a good tool to evaluate our progress and superior traits that we want to use as an evaluation of potential breeding stock to maximize our herd efficiency. Adding Braunvieh influence (Beefbuilders) into most cattle operations will add efficiency and grading which means profit. Poor management practices, lack of preconditioning calves, and soft culling will mean failure.

Let me explain why you should consider using Braunvieh in your cattle operation.

Color Bias
I know it's going to come up right from the beginning so let's start there! It has been driven like a nail that black cattle are better and get premiums - well let's take that coat off and look and what we eat - carcass. Side by side comparisons show that Braunvieh and Braunvieh influenced cattle will grade with the best with less waste, more yield, and do it more efficiently! They have won the Genetic Challenge Steer Trials for years, done extremely well in RFI testing programs, and it's proven itself to us first hand with our butcher beef sales. Our customers rave about the quality of their meat and our buyers always give us a premium for our steers. If the only way you can get a premium for your stock is have black hide then you may need to find a better way to market.
If you are afraid of being teased about having a tan bull in your pasture by your neighbor you just show him your check from the buyer!

Secondly, fullblood Braunvieh bulls crossed on black cows will produce black or dark brown calves and if you drop down to a percentage Braunvieh they will have more tendency to produce black hide if that is your concern.

Hybrid Vigor
Crossbreeding has been proven to increase self disease immunization, increase weaning weights, improve growth and maternal traits, and increase life expectancy and production to dams. F1 dams consistently throw better calves over straight line breeding. Basically, crossbreeding the best traits from two breeds promotes better and more efficient feeder cattle. It simply makes increased dollars & sense to cross Braunvieh bulls on Angus dams for the commercial producer.

Temperament
Strangely to some, one of the first items on my selection process is “Natural Docility”. I must have a good, daily working relationship with ALL the cattle I own - that includes bulls. I don’t want to get hurt or have a stroke trying to work wild & crazy, fence jumping cattle. I have shots to give, weights to record, sorting, the occasional assistance to a birth, and breeding to be done. Our cattle are our employees and I expect them to be efficient in their job and be well behaved just as any employer would expect of his employees. It is a proven fact that docile cattle eat & gain more efficiently to the tune of about $65/ head than aggressive cattle and grade better. I cannot afford to spend all my time, health, and resources fighting and chasing cattle! That is why we have and raise the cattle we own.

Dam Selection
My dams must not only be docile but be “Producers”. Producers of a calf every year with a short rebreeding cycle, a producer of milk to feed that calf, and the genetics to produce a calf that will grow efficiently. She must have longevity, structure, soundness and be efficient herself. Once again she is an employee. We all know the slackers and the aged that need to retire. Cull - they are costing you money.

Bull Selection
Bulls are somewhat like NFL players – they must be strong, healthy, efficient, & athletic. This requires genetics, muscle & bone structure, and sexually sound. Bulls that can’t or won’t breed don’t make me or anyone money! Bulls that may be correct in all other criteria but can’t hold up are not efficient. There are bulls - then there are sires. There are far too many "steers" walking around with a pair and are just multipliers. A bull represents 50% of your herd - choose wisely.

Vaccinations, Creeping, and Animal Identification
Vaccinate, Castrate, and bunk broke - these pay premiums! Any producer that does not use and have a complete vaccination program is playing with fire! The results outweigh the costs. Animal death and illness is a major complaint and expense by feedlots and if they can identify the operators who consistently sell unvaccinated, diseased, and unprofitable stock those producers will take a hit in the wallet. Most everyone uses some form of identification on their stock – identify your calves, keep records, vaccinate your entire herd, get on a good mineral and worming program and it will pay dividends.
Then there is the question of creep feeding. In most cases several studies and our experience indicate that creep fed calves make the weaning adjustment less stressfully, have less potential to have health issues, and since marbling and tenderness starts long before feedlot age we feel that several issues can be resolved before they become problems. Even excellent “First calf” heifers can be ruined, won’t rebreed efficiently, and can raise below standard calves if not supplemented and offering creep to offset the “drain” to their bodies. After all - I expect my dams to produce with longevity. Ask yourself -"Do you supplement your cows with a little grain or lick tubs?" What's different from supplementing your calves?

EPDs and Data Tracking
EPDs can be somewhat misleading. For EPDs to completely accurate all animals would have to be fed the same, have equal environments, and then test against genetics. Some breeds have crossbred and then bred back to achieve EPD characteristics. Also the accuracies of EPDs can really fog the facts. I find EPDs like the sticker on a new car - "estimated gas mileage will vary by conditions, driving habits, and region." The same with EPDs. Braunvieh have Fullblood, Pureblood & percentage registrations to help assure that you are getting all the facts. Most importantly, look at the overall traits and really what you see in front of you rather than numbers only. Those who created EPDs had good intentions but somewhere lost the insight who will interpret and use them.

EPDs could be a very useful tool in genetic selection but the collected information and the accuracies are horrible! Then we take in the fact that a lot of lying comprises those figures really don’t give you the facts. How about giving me actual birth, weaning, and yearling weights; compare them to all calves in the breed for that year, and for the progeny of that sire & dam that I can understand. Is this bull or dam a “Full Blooded” or was it really crossed with Holstein a few generations back? How can you give me estimated feedlot profitability when all cattle are not fed the same way and in different environments? Bulls, steers, and heifers on “test programs” compared to other breeds in the same test give a better analysis. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against EPDs but they need to be simple and easy to understand and should be collected and defined the same way for EVERY breed and every producer needs to access the very same type data collected on his herd, calves, sires and dams.
Also selecting for single traits or markers may be and in my opinion is not the only answer. We must take into consideration what are the outputs vs the input costs. What will this change make in an other area?

We treat all our cattle groups the same - we keep diligent records and examine each cow, calf, and bull for strengths and weaknesses. We feed each group according to age, weather, and pasture conditions. They have to prove themselves to us first and then to the customer. We judge them through “their” records vs. each other and the conditions not what someone in another part of the country is doing or not doing and represent the facts to our customers.

Efficiency, Yield, and Grade
Today more than ever cattle must be extremely efficient. It's not good enough to just have big daily gains. It should have been all along but now with higher feed costs than ever in history, feed efficiency and rate of gain must both be high to be profitable. Along with being an efficient animal it must have a high yield and grade to meet consumer and packer demand. Braunvieh and Braunvieh composites are very efficient and produce high yielding and grading carcasses.

Cattlemen in the Southeast are learning first hand about the added value of Original Braunvieh. Just ask any one of them who has infused Braunvieh genetics into their herds and they will tell you about increased weaning weights, better replacement females, more temperate dispositions of offspring, and easier handling cattle. All of these characteristics are what makes Original Braunvieh the breed of choice for all cattle operations, especially the small breeder who must have the most return for dollar spent. Data from the Meat Animal Research Institute of the United States Department of Agriculture backs up these claims. Data from MARC concluded that:

• The 200 day calf wt/female exposed was 40 lbs. higher than other breeds.

• Females out of Braunvieh sires calved, unassisted, 94.5 percent of the time with 95 percent of the calves surviving to weaning

• Braunvieh had a higher efficiency of conversion of feed than other breeds.

• Braunvieh cows averaged 5,680 lbs. of milk in 200 days and their progeny averaged 558 lbs, of weight at 200 days.

• Braunvieh progeny had the highest adjusted 200-day wt. of all breeds tested.

• By 13.5 months of age, 94.2 percent of Braunvieh females will have reached puberty and by 14.5 months of age, 100 percent of Braunvieh females will have reached puberty.

• Braunvieh sired feeders have a larger rib eye area with less back fat, lower cost per gain, and a higher percentage of carcasses that grade choice and prime.

This research proves that even when selling on weight alone Braunvieh will be profitable by out performing all other breeds by having the highest adjusted 200-day wt. of all of the breeds tested. Combine this data with the real life results of carcass tests over the last twenty years and it is a simple fact that the Original Braunvieh breed has become an industry leader for carcass quality, feedlot performance, maternal traits and environmental adaptability.

Summary

Regardless of the argument that Braunvieh cattle are or are not the top breed of cattle on their own, (remember that I earlier said – “facts not hype”) we have found Braunvieh cattle to be great in temperament, milking ability, breeding qualities, structure, soundness, efficiency, and producers. It makes no difference what color my machinery is if it is comparatively too expensive, labor & parts too high, and not efficient to operate. It’ the acres I till and pounds & dollars that will make me a profit.

No one breed, and certainly no one color will have everything we need to be successful producers, breeders and managers. Don't let the marketing promoters sell you on their "bull". They don't care about the quality or profitability of the products they promote! This is exactly why we have introduced Braunvieh into our program. We feel that they will bring out the very best in our composites. With small birth weights, fast growing, early maturing, great marbling and grading calves that are efficient and profitable. If the history of heterosis breeding tells us anything, F1 dams only may be the future of all production breeding. Yet we cannot let purebred stock just stay statis quo - we must constantly make improvements. We must as producers pay attention not only EPDs but input costs, weight gains vs feed type availability and cost, better reproduction traits and practices, marketing strategies, and know how to understand and use these tools. We can put 3" of hair on animal to hide his defects, fudge on EPDs, and spout our deeds in full-page color ads, but if the consumer won't buy our product because of small rib eye area, 3" of back fat or no marbling, if our sires and dams won't holdup and breed, if we have to c-section half of our cows because of high birth weights to meet weight targets at weaning, and if the animals we raise are just plain not efficient, as an industry we all loose!

Every day we as producers must prove ourselves. Source and age verification, the use of genetics to produce growth and quality, and the data to prove our results will be the path to success. “Many times the reasons we resist change is not for economic, scientific, or consumer demand but rather moving outside our comfort zones.”
We invite you to stop by or give us a call and let us show you why we believe we have something to offer you to the path of performance and profitability.