Leaps and Bounds
How an ongoing collaboration is ramping up the accuracy of carcass data for Limousin sires and pushing NALF to the head of the class among breed associations for sheer volume of carcass data records . It ’ s a win-win-win scenario for feeders , breeders and even dairy producers .
by Sharla Ishmael
It ’ s often in the halls between meetings where you ’ ll learn the most important information or meet someone with an idea that can change your business . In this story , it was a conversation at a convention about 10 years ago between longtime Limousin breeder , Jerry Wulf , and renowned feedyard consultant and cattle feeder , Dr . Kee Jim .
Wulf told Jim about a partnership between Wulf Farms and Riverview , an integrated agricultural operation with a large dairy segment . The short version is that in 2010 Riverview started incorporating more Jersey cows into the herd , because all of the milk was going to cheese . The problem was there was no market for the Jersey bull calves and it wasn ’ t logical to use sexed semen for replacement heifers on the whole herd , as only the top heifers would make the cut . Enter Limousin .
“ We said to Riverview , ‘ Let ’ s try to breed the rest to Limousin and Lim-Flex ,’” Wulf explains . “ We calved the first set out in 2011 and marketed the first Beef Builder calves to Tyson in 2012 . Prior to that , dairy steers of any breed sold at a big discount . We immediately avoided that dairy discount by changing the body type to a beef conformation . Plus , we had a market for them .”
Jim thought the idea was intriguing and stayed in touch with their progress on the Beef Builder program .
“ Three or four years later , at G . K . Jim Farms , we started buying them as feeder cattle ,” Jim says . G . K . Jim Farms is a big player in the
feedlot world , with yards from Texas to Alberta ( See Sidebar ). Add to that the software and data management expertise of Jim ’ s feedlot consulting firm , not to mention all of the Beef Builder cattle fed out by Wulf Cattle as well , and you ’ re looking at a serious volume of data right at their fingertips .
Wulf says one of the big advantages of this program was because all the dairy cows were bred by AI . That meant as long as they were tracking the sires , they would have a large commercial database of known registered sires which is very rare in the beef world .
“ All of our arrangements with packers involve the transmission of data back to the individual and we ’ ve been able to collect a very large
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“ Dairy steers have low yields and carcass weights . Limousin has the highest yields of any major beef breed in North America . They are known for cutability . Dairy brings quality and marbling to the table ; they just need the muscling , growth and feed efficiency offered by Limousin and Lim-Flex ,” says Jerry Wulf , explaining the rationale behind the beef on dairy Beef Builder program .
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