I have always wanted to have a blog, and now I do.

 In 1983/1984 I was a member of the Purdue Livestock Judging team, in my senior year majoring in Animal Science.  That was the era of frantically trying to make cattle bigger.  To place cattle in a class,  you simply placed the largest framed one first.  Something about this always bothered me.  The ones that I gravitated to were considered to be the worst ones in the class.  The thick, heavy muscled ones were too "early maturing".   

I got into the sheep business after college and noticed that my most productive ewes were the whitefaced Finn cross ewes that would lay down and spit out 3 lambs and raise them.  The big stately Suffolks never came close to making me as much money as the more maternal ewes would do.  

I had a type set in my mind, for both cattle and sheep, a maternal female, that did what the breed was intended to do.  A centered animal, with natural thickness and volume, along with feminity, a problem free animal that did her job with minimum assistance from me and lasted.

Angus and Hereford cattle hale from the British Islands.  They are known to be a moderate sized, moderate growth type of cattle that produce good carcass quality and the ability to do well on forages.  The problem today is that breeders are trying to make these breeds be all things to all people.  That is simply impossible.  The smart thing to do is to use these breeds for what they are intended for.  They have already invented Charolais.  Just as I would use a Suffolk or Hamp ram on my finn ewes to promote growth, Using a continental breed on a good black baldy or straight angus or hereford cow is the key to success.   

In the future, we will have females for sale, moderate framed, good uddered, problem free, centered cows that will do the job and represent their breed as they were intended to be. All cattle will be produced with integrity and be able to provide value for the grassfed guy or the conventional cattlemen, as long as they are used as intended.  Not too big, not too small, just right!