by Jacob Owens

This past September, a number of Devon breeders gathered in Kearney, Nebraska to participate in the annual meeting of the ADCA and to hold the first American Devon cattle show in a number of years. As many of you know, the show was held in conjunction with the Grass Genetics Plus Conference, which allowed us to take advantage of the talents of conference speaker and ultrasound expert Allen Williams. The participating Devon animals were all evaluated visually, as one would expect, but they were also evaluated using the same ultrasound protocols that Dr. Williams uses for selection in his Tallgrass Beef Company. This was a very exciting opportunity for all breeders participating in the show to see how their animals stacked up to the demands of Dr. Williams and to see exactly how the use of ultrasound data could help them in the future.

The Devons were divided into three groups: bulls, bred heifers, and open heifers and were evaluated using ultrasound in terms of ribeye shape, backfat, tenderness, stress and intramuscular fat. We shall look at each of these areas separately, but first it is important to state that all the animals evaluated were in production somewhere as breeding animals and in no way were being fattened for slaughter or for this evaluation for that matter. The variations in age, gestation patterns and a number of other variables make exact comparisons with fattened steers impossible to make, but as you will see, the animals all performed very well. In the following charts, blue numbers indicate “ideal” or better and red numbers indicate “acceptable”. Here it must be noted what scores “acceptable” under these protocols, should be considered exceptional. As we learned in Kearney from the top grass-finished buyers in America, only 20-30% of cattle in this country meet their criteria. How did the Devon animals do?

Bred Heifers

Cow ID Breed Sex WT DOB Age REA BF RES REA/CWT % IMF TEND Stress Visual Final
Q18 Devon Heifer 800 3/28/05 549 11.59 0.21 0.73 1.45 3.83 25 10 2 1
Q14 Devon Heifer 800 3/27/05 550 10.22 0.24 0.84 1.28 3.38 23 10 5 4
P28 Devon Heifer 900 11/2/04 695 12.06 0.27 0.73 1.34 3.58 23 10 4 2
P32 Devon Heifer 860 11/20/04 677 8.95 0.31 0.69 1.04 3.54 22 10 6 6
P73 Devon Heifer 920 12/20/04 647 14.30 0.44 0.74 1.55 3.45 23 10 1 3
Q9 Devon Heifer 900 2/12/05 593 11.31 0.34 0.55 1.26 3.30 25 10 3 5

Devon Bulls

Cow ID Breed Sex WT DOB Age REA BF RES REA/CWT MASC SC % IMF TEND Stress Visual Final
134 Devon Bull 1000 10/10/04 719 10.25 0.09 0.57 1.02 4 4 1.83 25 20 4 4
137 Devon Bull 1200 10/20/04 709 11.95 0.08 0.69 1.00 3 3 3.00 26 10 3 3
P29 Devon Bull 1000 9/27/04 732 11.52 0.19 0.72 1.15 2 1 2.58 26 10 2 1
P116 Devon Bull 1200 10/23/04 706 13.08 0.14 0.79 1.09 1 2 1.14 28 15 1 2

Class One – Open Heifers

Cow ID Breed Sex WT DOB Age REA BF RES REA/CWT % IMF TEND Stress Visual Final
Q48 Devon Heifer 450 11/29/05 303 7.23 0.07 0.65 1.31 2.37 22 10 5 3
R3 Devon Heifer 470 10/5/05 359 6.79 0.08 0.57 1.65 2.57 22 10 3 2
Q6 Devon Heifer 620 9/13/05 381 9.60 0.05 0.57 1.55 1.88 24 20 2 6
R49 Devon Heifer 450 11/15/05 317 6.67 0.07 0.58 1.16 2.93 22 15 4 5
R78 Devon Heifer 410 10/15/05 349 5.10 0.09 0.59 1.24 3.52 21 15 6 4
26 Devon Heifer 750 5/25/05 492 10.23 0.24 0.60 1.36 3.61 25 10 1 1

*Indiviudal traits are color coded to indicate their ranking within contemporary group and in accordance with Tallgrass Beef Company Protocols. Blue shading indicates that this heifer ranks in the top tier for the respective trait. REA is not ranked since RES and REA/CWT are much better indicators of carcass retail yield and cutability. Tan color coded traits rank in the second tier for the respective trait. Traits without a color code rank in the third tier and meet the minimum qualifications of the Tallgrass protocols, but could use improvement. Traits coded in Red Font indicate performance below Tallgrass Beef Company protocol standards.

In the ribeye shape category, every animal tested scored above the “accepted score” of .5 and 9 out of 16 animals scored above the “ideal” of .65.

Every bred heifer scored “ideal” in terms of backfat and 9 out of 16 animals tested scored above acceptable.

In terms of tenderness, 10 of 16 scored “ideal” and 15 of 16 scored above acceptable. The one animal out of this range scored “slightly tender”.

The stress scores were again well received, with 11 out of 16 animals scoring ideal or better. Every animal scored 20 or better which indicates only “slight stress”.

Finally we come to intramuscular fat. Here we found that 11 of 16 animals scored in the USDA Select grade. Of the 5 remaining, 2 were bulls which we would not expect to score high due to masculinity and breeding stress. The other 3 were open heifers.

It was noted by Allen Williams that the animals as a whole tested very well and that it was difficult to knock any particular animal due to extreme variables inherent in the testing as it was, namely; animals of different age, under different management systems all in production as breeders. Undoubtedly, the use of ultrasound as a tool for genetic selection is viable. That being said, the producers of the participating Devon should all take heart in the fact that, according to the ultrasound data, their animals have the “right stuff” for grass-finishing. Of course, more data always helps legitimize numbers such as these. I, for one, plan on using ultrasound and I encourage my fellow Devon Cattle breeders to do the same.

For more information read the following article by Allen Williams.