ABBA Provides Opportunities for Herd, Breed Improvement

As beef producers, you are no stranger to today’s industry challenges. Two of these that are probably at the top of your list are production efficiency and beef quality. Looking for solutions to these potential issues? Try incorporating new technologies and tools that will both improve carcass merit in your seedstock and enhance your bottom line. Not sure where to find and utilize these technologies? Look no further. The American Brahman Breeders Association (ABBA) Research and Breed Improvement Committee is committed to providing such opportunities for members. The ABBA’s National Carcass Evaluation Program, initiated in 2000, is a testament to the committee’s efforts.

Since its inception, the ABBA National Carcass Evaluation Program has facilitated the feeding, finishing and harvesting of over 900 purebred Brahman steers, providing Brahman breeders the opportunity to cooperatively market their steers while gaining meaningful information on their herds feedyard and rail performance. Not only has the program been beneficial on a whole herd basis, but it has also helped to identify and segregate outliers in the Brahman gene pool and has aided in producing “ammunition” for the ABBA to use in dispelling some of the vicious misconceptions that the breed has faced within the beef industry. This program has allowed the ABBA to prove that Brahman cattle can successfully achieve industry demands.

The program is both extremely useful and very user friendly. It provides copious data on animals that can be reflected in breeding decisions for your individual operation. The next round of the National Carcass Evaluation Program will begin the first week of December when spring born calves will be shipped to the feed yard to be fed, finished, harvested and evaluated.
But the ABBA understands this option may not be the right fit for you and your operation, and your choice really depends on your operation’s size. In an effort to provide opportunities for every Brahman breeder to improve the production efficiency and beef quality in their individual herds, the ABBA Research and Breed Improvement Committee has provided two additional options that will turn results and produce data.

Option No. 1 is utilizing DNA markers for tenderness, marbling and efficiency. The ABBA has entered into agreements with Pfizer Animal Genetics and Igenity, the primary marketers of DNA markers, and accepts data from either group. Utilizing DNA markers, especially for tenderness and marbling, is an extremely important aspect of breed improvement due to the fact that Brahman cattle take big hits for misconceptions of carcass quality. The main misconceptions are that Brahman cattle will not marble, indicating that they will not reach the Choice Quality Grade, and that their carcasses are not tender. As a whole, the Brahman breed, just like any other breed, will produce animals whose carcasses will marble and be tender. DNA markers identify the animals within the breed that will meet these industry requirements, and do so at an early age. This allows producers to identify both positive and negative representatives and make management decisions accordingly.

Before DNA markers became an option, the Warner-Bratzler shear force test was the only way to measure tenderness. This required actually harvesting animals and testing individual steaks. With DNA technology, breeders are able to get a broader sampling and are able to use feedback data to influence the progress of their herd through breeding stock testing. This program is relatively inexpensive, is an easy collection process and could put your program at the forefront in the race for improved tenderness, marbling ability and feed efficiency.

If the first two options still aren’t the right match, consider real-time ultrasounding. This procedure is widely used by cattle producers to gather carcass data that can enhance genetic predictions without requiring animals to be harvested. Over the past 20 years, studies conducted by different universities and research facilities have shown that the relationship between ultrasound measurements and actual carcass data are highly correlated. The ABBA has adopted a set of ultrasound guidelines, and accepts ultrasound data for calculations of Carcass EPDs. The ABBA has scanned control groups of cattle to derive adjustments on age and ideal scan times. The ideal scan time for Brahman cattle is between 12 and 16 months of age.

Over the past year, Brahman breeders have more than tripled the number of animals previously ultrasounded, which has identified both individual animals and genetic lines that are superior or inferior for certain carcass traits. This is just another way breeders can utilize technology to better position their programs in the industry. If this is something that you’d like to consider, the ABBA website, Brahman.org, contains a list of requirements, barn sheets and approved ultrasound technicians.

Due to its members’ participation in the carcass evaluation program and its early adoption and use of DNA technology, the ABBA was the first breed association in the U.S. to launch a Genomically-Enhanced EPD for tenderness in conjunction with Pfizer Animal Health. The continual collection of data through each of the programs listed above will allow the ABBA to combine data into a multi-trait model that will produce a high accuracy EPD for important carcass traits.

Improvements through the use of available tools and techniques combined with the built-in efficiency that the Brahman breed was founded on leaves no question that Brahmans will continue to have a viable roll in the U.S. beef industry. And with cost of production playing a large roll, taking advantage of economically relevant Brahman attributes is as critical as ever. The ABBA encourages you to utilize these advancements in technology and these programs that are at your disposal as we work together to better position our breed in the global beef industry.