by Keaton Dodd
“You cannot manage what you do not measure.”
It’s true in life, in business, and in the cattle business.
Over the past few decades, the beef industry has greatly improved beef quality across the board, and BRC leads these efforts in the Brahman breed.
By ultrasounding our cattle, and making selection decisions based on the ultrasound results, we’ve been able to make dramatic carcass improvements over a few generations.
Let’s discuss the process, benefits, and effectiveness of using ultrasounding to improve carcass traits in Brahman cattle.
How Cattle Ultrasound Works
To start, let’s go over a basic overview of how the technology works.
- A cattle ultrasound uses high frequency sound waves.
- Those sound waves and their echo are measured using a probe (transducer).
- The machine creates a 2-dimensional image by judging the speed, distance, and direction of those waves.
Cattle ultrasound machines allow us to see and measure an animal’s muscle and adipose system and get a feel for it’s carcass value without having to harvest said individual or put it through any form of an invasive procedure.
What do we measure in cattle ultrasound?
When we ultrasound beef cattle, we collect the following measurements:
- Rib Eye Area
- Percent intramuscular fat (marbling)
- Rump fat
- Backfat
In the beef industry, we use the information acquired to help predict two things:
- Palatability
- Yield
So what do these terms mean?
Palatability describes the overall eating experience. So think, flavor, tenderness, and juiciness. Marbling is the best indicator of palatability. What’s marbling? It’s the white flecks of fat inside the muscle. The more marbling, the better the palatability.
Yield means the amount of beef produced. To measure this, we look at the rib eye area. But, it’s not simply the size of the rib eye that’s important. You also need to look at the amount of backfat, and rump fat over the muscle. This is basically your muscle to fat ratio. A leaner animal will have a lower yield grade, which is more desirable. Yield grades range from 1 to 5, with 1 being the leanest and 5 being the fattest. Yield grades 4 and 5 are usually discounted by processors for being overly fat.
Use a Certified Technician
So, you just buy a ultrasound machine and turn it on right? Wrong.
You’ll need to hire a certified ultrasound technician to provide the ultrasound service. This is an individual who is approved by the Ultrasound Guideline Council.
This professional accreditation validates your data and ensures that the technician is capable of meeting image quality and scan accuracy.
To learn more about this, visit the Ultrasound Guidelines Council website (who is a RHD client by the way).
Scan Within the Acceptable Age Window
Another requirement of ultrasound is that cattle must be scanned between the acceptable age window established by your breed association.
For ABBA, this is between 334 and 487 days.
So, let’s say you decide to start implementing ultrasound in your herd.
- Should you all of a sudden scan all your herd bulls? No. Their data would not matter. They aren’t in the right age window.
- Should you scan all your mature donor cows? No. Again, that data isn’t accepted by ABBA and is not useful.
- Can you scan your 8 year old cow, and claim she would grade “Choice?” Again, no. Simply based on age, an 8 year old cow is not even eligible for a USDA quality grade.
To start the process, look for your cattle that fit in the correct age window. Then, based on your calving season, try to make a schedule to regularly scan your cattle. For example, if you have a solid spring calving season and fall calving season, you could scan twice a year.
The age window is set so that all of the cattle measured are on a level playing field, and be examined at a similar age. Since marbling increases over time and with more feed, obviously a 6 year old donor cow who’s been fed show feed for the last year is going to have a lot of marbling than a range cow solely eating grass. This is why sometimes marketing claims regarding ultrasound measurements can be deceptive. Measuring older cattle and trying to use that data in making breeding decisions does not do any good.
The cattle all need to be scanned between the 334 to 487 day window.
Consider the weight and nutrition of your cattle
Finally, make sure that cattle scanned are in the right condition and on an incline of gain. This means they’re gaining weight, not losing it. This allows for an animal’s full genetic potential for marbling and ribeye area to be expressed.
The ABBA offers a full guide on ultrasounding your Brahman cattle through the following link on the American Brahman Breeders Association website.
Proof is in the Pudding (Or in this case, the beef)
Over the past decade, BRC has been working hard to improve our herd’s carcass traits. When we began, we were pretty good with yield, and we realized we needed to focus on increased marbling.
So, we started tracking the data. Since then, we’ve seen exponential improvements in marbling across the BRC herd. When we reached our goal of 60% of our herd reaching the benchmark for Choice, we felt we were ready to launch our branded beef programs, Brahman Country Beef and FitBeef. Today, that number is well over 80% of the herd meeting the benchmark for Choice.
With customer satisfaction at the forefront of Brahman Country Beef, we have been extremely pleased with the very positive reviews of our purebred Brahman beef’s flavor profile, tenderness, and documented health advantages. Our customers rave about the palatability and the yield.
We have a goal of producing a Brahman bull with the look of a show champion, who can also grade Prime. And, we’re getting close. This year, one of our herd sire prospects scanned 7.70 % IMF. For those not familiar, 8% is prime so that is a very awesome feat, considering he was a bull…. not a steer.
We truly believe the future is so bright for Brahman cattle in the global beef business and if we as breeders stay committed to selective breeding decisions based around carcass quality, there is so much more waiting to be accomplished.
For more info on our beef visit https://shopbrahmancountrybeef.com/ and to learn how to implement BRC beef genetics into your program check in on https://brcutrer.com/.
