Moving towards a more sustainable beef
production system
Ian Locke
Wirruna Poll Hereford Stud
“Spring Valley” Holbrook, NSW 2644
AUSTRALIA
Ian Locke is the managing partner of a family grazing business called
Wirruna Poll Hereford Stud (WPHS) located at Holbrook, NSW, in the
south eastern part of Australia. Having completed a Degree in
Agricultural Economics (University of New England, Armidale) and an
early career as an agricultural business consultant in Sydney and Orange
in NSW, Ian began his farming career in 1994 following his passion in
growing grass and beef cattle. Ian has grown a significant bull breeding
business in Wirruna Poll Hereford Stud and runs a prime lamb breeding
flock. As well as hands-on agriculture, Ian chairs the International Beef
Recording Scheme (BREEDPLAN®) and is a Board member of the
Agricultural Business Research Institute (ABRI) in Armidale.
Introduction
There is a common theme of beef producers all over the world, to produce beef profitably
with high market acceptance and at low cost. Often this needs to be done against a
backdrop of declining ‘terms of trade’, which requires continual improvements to the
production system in order to remain competitive and sustainable in a world market.
In this paper, I aim to present the major factors that should be considered in designing
and maintaining a low cost beef production system and then focus on the value of
genetic improvement to make continual gains. I believe that low cost production
systems win at the end of the day. After all, the major comparative advantage of the
beef cow (and other ruminants) is that she eats ‘grass’ and turns it into protein.
Generally, there is lots of grass with very little use to other industry or mankind,
making it a low cost input.
To begin with, I wish to give you some background on the Beef Industry in Australia,
our production system at Wirruna and some of the foundations of my thinking.
Hopefully this information is both relevant and useful for your beef businesses in South
Africa.
In Australia, we have close to 30 million head of cattle (2.5% of the world’s cattle
population). Over 65% of the beef we produced is exported and there is also a significant
live cattle trade of approximately seven hundred thousand head per year. Our heavy
reliance on this very competitive world export beef market has heightened the need for
beef producers to meet product quality standards of different markets and to produce
beef at low cost when compared to our competitors.
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 1
7 February 2016
Location & Climate
Our property “Spring Valley” is located at
Holbrook in southern NSW.
When compared to the latitude of South Africa,
our location is below the Cape of Good Hope at
about the 35 S parallel while Durban is on the
30 S parallel. Nevertheless, we do sell many
bulls up to the Tropic of Capricorn which lies to
the North of South Africa.
We have a temperate climate with winter
Wirruna Poll Herefords
dominant rainfall averaging around 708
mm/annum. Springs are very reliable (10% of
Springs fail) and Autumns not so reliable (60% of Autumns’ fail). We grow 80% of our
pasture in Spring and therefore our livestock systems are designed around calving and
lambing and growing out animals in Spring when the pasture is available.
The Property-“Spring Valley”
The property is 1,520 Ha with around 1,400 Ha usable for grazing livestock. The soils
and landscape on the property are highly variable and include alluvial and heavy clay
flats to granite based slopes and rocky hills. The soils are naturally acidic (pH = 4.0 –
4.5 in CaCl2) and inherently infertile (7 – 9 mg/kg Olsen P). Nevertheless the country is
very responsive to inputs of lime and super phosphate.
The property is largely improved to mostly highly productive phalaris and sub clover
pastures and some ‘feed gap’ pastures such as lucerne, ryegrass and forage rape. We
view good pastures as the powerhouse of the business - well fertilised and a grazing
system allowing paddocks to be rested ensuring them to, not just survive, but THRIVE.
Pasture type (Ha) - "Spring Valley"
Perennial Pasture
732
Annual Pasture
321
Cropping
110
Native Based Pasture
231
Un-usable (Treelots, sheds, etc)
126
1,520 Ha
48%
21%
7%
15%
8%
Table 1
The Enterprises
Both seedstock beef and sheep for prime lamb enterprises are run and driven as hard as
we can with a focus on per hectare performance rather than production per head. A
flexible backgrounding enterprise is run from June to December, if the season permits
utilising surplus spring feed.
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
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7 February 2016
Enterprise
Current Livestock No.s
Ave DSE*
%-age
70%
Annual Production
1,200 head
(calve 530 Cows)
200,000+ kg beef cattle
Sell 150+ Poll Hereford
Bulls/annum
Prime Lamb Flock
(LAMBPRO)
3,400 ewes
12,000kg greasy wool
3,200 prime lambs (Stores)
Surplus sheep
Backgrounding Feeder
Steers
0 - 400
(depending on season)
0 - 100,000 kg beef cattle
(net)
Seedstock Beef Cattle
30%
0-10%
Table 2
* DSE stands for Dry Sheep Equivalents which is the energy required to maintain a non-lactating sheep
Benchmarking
Over the last 20 years we have compared our business to other similar businesses
through a Benchmarking service offered by an agricultural consulting firm called
Holmes Sackett & Associates. This has been an important foundation to my thinking
about running a profitable beef enterprise.
Benchmarking is an excellent tool to highlight the strengths and weaknesses in your
business and identify the key drivers that effect profit. Continuous Benchmarking over
time allows you to set targets (Benchmarks) and monitor your performance over time to
ensure that you remain focussed on these key profit drivers; these are:
 How many kilograms of product you produce per hectare per year (kg/Ha)
 The cost of production of the product ($/kg)
 Price received ($/kg)
Profit = Product x (Price Received - Cost of production)
$/Ha = kg/Ha x (
$/kg
COP$/kg )
When we first started Benchmarking, we found that our efforts to restrict expenditure
were not helping our profitability. When compared to other farmers we saw that those
who ran more stock and spent more on pastures and labour saving infrastructure were
more profitable. We recognised that the most profitable beef producers had production
systems designed to increase productivity and decrease production costs per kilogram of
beef produced. Increasing the number of kilograms of beef produced in the herd can
better absorb the fixed costs. And thereby reduce the cost to produce a kg of beef.
Typically, as most beef producers are price takers, there is very little difference in the
price received/kg between the top and average commercial beef herds. The differences
in Cost of Production (COP) and productivity/Ha, on the other hand, are vast. Luckily,
these factors are largely within our control, and that is where we should focus our
efforts!
To produce more beef at lower cost, the major factors are:
 The Production System
 Cost Control
 An Efficient Cow Herd
 Animal Health
 Genetics
 Risk Management
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 3
7 February 2016
Through Benchmarking we have developed a deeper understanding of the beef business,
and the key drivers that affect beef herd profitability. Using our seedstock beef
enterprise as an example, I wish to discuss the importance of designing the production
system and developing an efficient cow herd that is screened and selected with-in your
particular production environment, for a more sustainable beef business.
Seedstock Beef Enterprise
I am the 3rd generation of the Locke family to manage the Wirruna Poll Hereford herd,
which was established by my Grandfather in 1949. Now over 60 years old, the herd
benefits from a long history of selection and is among the best performance recorded
herds in Australia, having been part of the validation of BREEDPLAN® with a total of
some 9,000 animals performance recorded including over 7,000 birthweight records and
over 4,400 animals with carcase scan records.
The seedstock beef enterprise differs from most studs in that we place a large emphasis
on raising cattle under commercial stress conditions, believing that the genetic outcomes
are more applicable to our commercial client. One of my criticisms of the traditional
stud industry is that they change their environment to suit their genetics. Meanwhile,
the commercial beef producer must have the genetics that suit their environment.
The Production System
Clearly it is important to plan your production system so that you can competitively
produce and supply cattle within the demands of the market specifications. Important
factors are stocking rate, calving time and steer turn-off time. These need to be
considered in the context of your operating environment.
Stocking Rate
Economic modelling of beef herds show that stocking rate has a significant influence on
income.
Table 3. Relative Influence on Income
Stocking Rate
8
Fertility
4
Growth Rate
2
Carcase
1
In our environment, carrying the optimum amount of stock that can utilise our Spring
flush of feed, yet not be too costly to carry through the ‘winter bottleneck’ of low feed
availability, is the key to maximising profitability in a grass fed livestock system.
Stocking rate is a key profit driver and having animals that can cope with high stock
rates is crucial to our business. The following graph shows the annual and mid-winter
stocking rate per hectare of Wirruna Poll Herefords. We assess stocking rate in units
called Dry Sheep Equivalents (DSE).
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 4
7 February 2016
Graph 1
"Spring Valley"
Annual vs Winter Stocking Rate
DSE/Ha
20.0
18.0
15.3
16.0
14.0
12.0
12.6
11.4
11.4
10.7
10.5
10.4
10.0
14.8 14.9
15.0 15.0
14.2
15.7
15.2
14.4
13.9
12.8
12.3 12.7
12.4
13.0
11.4
10.7 10.6
10.6 10.3
10.2 10.3
10.0
9.1
8.8
7.7
8.0
9.4
8.2
6.0
Annual Stocking Rate DSE/Ha
4.0
Winter Stocking Rate Winter DSE/Ha
2.0
0.0
95/6 96/7 97/8 98/9 99/0 00/1 01/2 02/3 03/4 04/5 05/6 06/7 07/8 08/9 09/10 10/11 11/12
In this graph we can see that we have been able to drive stocking rates up from around
10-11 DSE/Ha (13,500 DSE) in 1995 to the current 15 DSE/Ha (20,000 DSE) on the
same area of land. This is around 50% more highly stocked than the district average.
The recent drought which affected much of Australia saw a decline in stocking rates but
we have since returned to the pre-drought levels.
The important aspect about Graph 1 is the widening gap between the annual average
stocking rate and the mid-winter stocking rate. Total livestock production has grown,
but without adding extra pressure to our most difficult feed months in mid-winter. This
has resulted from changes in calving and lambing time, timing of stock sales and using
trade stock in good years to utilise feed surpluses. These changes to our production
system have added greatly to our overall production and resilience in the difficult years.
A key factor is that the Spring grown pasture is being better utilised.
Calving Time
In a beef grazing business, grass is one of our major inputs. In designing the production
system you want to understand the seasonal fluctuation of both pasture quantity and
quality. The following graph 2 shows the pasture production curve for our environment
and then the energy requirements of an August calving cow is overlayed on top. As the
energy requirement nearly triples during lactation when compared to a dry cow, it is
best to calve “into the grass” to minimise supplementary feeding and have only dry cows
when there is high likelihood of low feed reserves.
Nature is too expensive to fight, so you must design a system to work with it!
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
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7 February 2016
Graph 2
Matching Animal Requirements to Feed Supply
25
140
CALVING
120
100
20
WEANING
15
80
60
10
40
20
5
Cow Energy requirements
Pasture Growth Rate (kg DM/Ha)
160
0
-20
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
Months
A
S
O
N
D
0
Steer Turn-off time
Again, consideration of ideal steer turnoff time depends on your production
environment. Nevertheless, optimising the ratio of steers to cows run can make more
efficient use out of your quality feed resources.
Graph 3
A kilogram of quality grass being eaten by a steer for growth can be more efficient than
a cow eating the same kilogram for maintenance. So selling calves as weaners, when
you have quality grass available is often inefficient. Likewise, bullocks that have
reached maturity are eating grass for little or no gain in value.
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 6
7 February 2016
Many Wirruna clients aim to grow-out and sell steers at around 14-20 months of age for
either feedlots to finish (14 to 16 months) or as grass finished animals directly to the
abattoir (18 to 20 months). This enables them to capture a further efficiency of utilizing
compensatory weight gain with cheaper quality feed resources during a steers second
Spring. Sluggish yearling winter weight gains can be efficiently improved over the
following Spring flush to result in little final weight difference, but at low feed cost.
Efficient Cow Herd
Management
An efficient cow herd is a key element of profitable beef production systems.
Management is the key. A disciplined herd screening process should be implemented so
as to only replicate the animals that are in fact ‘doing the job’ in their environment. Any
animal that fails to raise a live unassisted calf every year should be culled with no
exception and no favourites!
At Wirruna we call this the ‘Hurdle System’. The hurdles for a female to stay in the
Wirruna herd are as follows:
1. A heifer must concieve in a 6 week mating period at 14-15 months to calve at 2
years (Cull on empty Preg Test)
2. A heifer must deliver a live unassisted calf
3. Every heifer must bring a calf of acceptable quality through to weaning age
4. Each cow must rebreed in a 6 week mating period
5. Each cow must continue to bring a live unassisted calf of acceptable quality
through to weaning age every year.
All that fail the above are removed from the breeding herd.
By setting up this disciplined approach to breeding over the medium term, I believe that
you are setting up a highly fertile, efficient and low cost breeding herd well adapted to
their environment. The herd becomes easy care, screened for fertility, labour consuming
tasks such as dystocia and is simple to manage.
Herd Structure
The Cow herd should be young in age. This is done by retaining at least 90% of heifers
for mating, and with plenty of young replacements, cows over 8.5 years are sold (in
steady state).
This further benefits the herd by speeding up the rate of genetic gain, increases the
average production efficiency of the herd with a higher proportion of younger stock
(refer graph 3) and reduces wastage through age related problems such as poor milk,
loss of teeth and eye cancer. Also, young herds maximise your inventory value and can
better handle the inevitable drought years.
Herd Fertility
I see the best measure of fertility as more calves weaned/cow joined. This means that a
fertile cow herd encapsulates reproductive rate, calving ease and calf survival. As the
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
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7 February 2016
saying goes … “Dead calves have distressingly low growth rates.’ There must be a zero
tolerance for fertility failures.
To have a fertile cow herd, obviously you need fertile bulls too. Bulls have extra
importance because of their heavy influence over the genetic makeup of the herd, often
for 15 years or more.
Genetics
There is no doubt that genetics is important. The wrong genetics in the environment
can be disastrous. In the Wirruna production system, we see strains of genetics and
particular trait extremes that are often screened out of the cow herd, simply because
they are unable to get back in calf every year under our stocking rate pressure.
Typically large framed cows, with low genetic fat and cows with high milk can be tested
empty at pregnancy testing time.
We believe that our disciplined approach to cow herd management results in a more
feed efficient genotype, that is able to cope with high stocking rate conditions. The less
feed efficient cows are screened out over time, especially obvious in the tough years.
The Wirruna cow is typically a moderate framed cow with above average genetic fat.
These cows tend to be able to ride ‘the condition score roller coaster’ throughout the
year. They are easy ‘doing’, put on the weight when the feed is available, and then live
off those reserves over the leaner months.
Breedplan
BREEDPLAN® is the world’s leading genetic evaluation system for beef cattle. It
producers Estimate Breeding Values (EBVs) or Estimated Progeny Difference (EPDs)
for a range of traits. Like Benchmarking, BREEDPLAN® has been an excellent tool for
seedstock herds, not only to measure individual traits, but also to benchmark the
genetic progress of the herd for those traits.
BREEDPLAN® Traits
GROWTH
Birth Weight (BWT)
Growth -200 Day Weaning (200D)
Growth -400 Day Yearling (400D)
Growth -600 Day Final (600D)
Maternal (Milk)
Mature Cow Weight (MCW)
FERTILITY
Scrotal size (SS)
Days to calving (DtC)
Gestation length (GL)
Calving ease-direct (CE-dir)
Calving ease-daughters (CE-Mat)
CARCASE
OTHER
Carcase weight (CWT)
Fat depth – Rump (P8F)
Fat depth – Rib (Rib)
Retail beef yield (RBY%)
Intramuscular fat (IMF%)
Docility
Net feed intake
Flight time
Shear force
Conformation
Table 4
Wirruna Poll Herefords has performance recorded since the early 1970’s when it became
a foundation member of what is now known as BREEDPLAN®.
Genetic Gain
The following diagram is a good illustration of the feeling of lift in your herd’s ability to
meet its breeding objectives and market targets. Like a water skier, with not enough
power in the boat, poor genetic gains can be dragging down your beef business!
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 8
7 February 2016
Genetic improvement can be made for an individual trait or across a range of traits. In
beef cattle breeding, the rate of genetic improvement is often ‘inherently’ slow. But the
best thing about genetic gain is that it is both cumulative & permanent. This
emphasises the sustainability aspect of genetic gain – it may take time but the genetic
gains are permanent improvements to beef production system and the associated
economic consequences. The key is to make gains in the economically relevant traits.
$ Index
Selection Indexes are available to allow the comparison of animals on the basis of how
much profit they will generate, per cow joined, in a commercial herd. This is derived
from the mix of economic traits measured by BREEDPLAN®.
Graph 4
Rate of Genetic Progress - Grainfed $Index
$100.0
Breed Trend
$90.0
P2 = $6.80/yr
WPHS
$80.0
$70.0
P1 = $4.20/yr
$60.0
P2 = $2.60/yr
$50.0
$40.0
P1 = $1.90/yr
$30.0
Period 2
Period 1
$20.0
01
02
03
04
05
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
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06
07
08
09
10
11
12
7 February 2016
The $Index is a perfect extension of BREEDPLAN® EBVs and offers an important tool to
better focus on the most profitable mix of traits. The Grain-fed $Index, which was
introduced for Australian Herefords in 2002, is shown in Graph 4, in this case the
Wirruna herd is increasing at over the double the average rate for the Hereford breed.
The on-going quest to improve $Index values is the foundation for a sustainable beef
business, both to my clients and our own seedstock enterprise.
Analysis of Wirruna Trends
Having being involved in performance recording for over 30 years, the Wirruna herd has
a good history of data to analyse to assess the results of genetic selection using
BREEDPLAN®. It is important to point out that year to year the phenotypic trends (the
light blue bars) can vary because of environmental influences such as drought, changes
in stock rate or management regime. Nevertheless, over the longer term, this analysis
shows phenotypic improvement in the majority of the traits analysed.
The trends show that genetics are playing a role. Note however, where the R2 figure is
low; this reminds us that other factors, such as management and environment
influences, are also at play.
Analyses of changes in phenotypic and genetic traits - WPHS
Trait
No. Yrs
BWT
GL
200D
400D
600D
MTW
SS
DtC
EMA
Rib
IMF%
Analysed
26
17
28
27
22
24
24
21
23
23
14
Slope of Trendline
Phenotypic
change/Yr
0.14
-0.09
0.02
1.07
2.77
0.87
0.07
-0.56
0.14
0.04
0.04
Units/
year
kgs
days
kgs
kgs
kgs
kgs
cm
days
cm
2
mm
%
EBV Change/Yr
Genetic
gain/yr
0.07
-0.09
0.71
1.33
2.46
1.79
0.11
-0.17
0.06
0.01
0.04
R2
Units/
year
Goodness of
fit
kgs
0.2
0.07
0.01
0.11
0.45
0.11
0.26
0.64
0.04
0.19
0.35
days
kgs
kgs
kgs
kgs
cm
days
cm2
mm
%
Geno/Pheno
linkage











Table 5
As you would expect, the changes in Wirruna’s EBVs reflect these phenotypic changes.
The graphs that follow show phenotypic observations (adjusted for age, etc), the trend in
phenotypic observations for a number of traits, EBV trends for Wirruna and EBV trends
for the Hereford breed.
I believe these graphs clearly demonstrate that selection on BREEDPLAN® EBVs works.
Our experience at Wirruna Poll Herefords is that we have selected on EBVs in balance
to move a number of traits concurrently in the desired direction (as opposed to single
trait selection) and the phenotypic results clearly reflect these desired trends.
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
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7 February 2016
Change in Weight Traits
kgs
250
EBV
(kgs)
+35.0
200 Day Weight
kgs
R² = 0.0123
240
+30.0
230
R² = 0.1137
380
+35.0
360
210
+30.0
+20.0
200
340
+25.0
+15.0
190
+20.0
320
180
+15.0
+10.0
200D Wgt
200D EBV - WPHS
200D EBV - Breed
Trendline
170
160
150
+5.0
+0.0
+10.0
+5.0
280
+0.0
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
EBV
(kgs)
+70.0
kgs
620
+60.0
610
R² = 0.4522
530
400D Wgt
400D EBV - WPHS
400D EBV - Breed
Trendline
300
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
600 Day Weight
+45.0
+40.0
+25.0
220
kgs
550
EBV
(kgs)+50.0
400 Day Weight
400
EBV
(kgs) +70.0
Mature Cow Weight
R² = 0.1089
+60.0
510
+50.0
490
600
+50.0
590
470
+40.0
450
+40.0
580
+30.0
430
+30.0
570
410
+20.0
600D Wgt
600D EBV - WPHS
600D EBV - Breed
Trendline
390
370
350
89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 11
+20.0
560
+10.0
550
+0.0
540
Mat Cow Wgt
MCW EBV - WPHS
MCW EBV - Breed
Trendline
+10.0
+0.0
86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09
7 February 2016
Change in Birth Traits
EBV
(days) +1.0
Gestation Length
Days
289
Gest Length
GL EBV - WPHS
GL EBV - Breed
Trendline
288
287
+0.5
+5.0
CE (Dir) - WPHS
CE (Dir) - Breed
+4.0
286
Calving Ease - Direct (%)
Genetic Trend
CE(Dir) EBV%
+6.0
+0.0
+3.0
285
-0.5
R² = 0.0721
284
283
-1.0
+2.0
+1.0
+0.0
282
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
-1.5
281
-1.0
280
-2.0
96
kgs
43
97
98
99
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
EBV
kgs +5.0
Birth Weight
41
+4.5
39
+4.0
+3.5
37
-2.0
Calving Ease - Daughters (%)
Genetic Trend
CE(Mat) EBV%
+4.0
+3.0
CE (Mat) - WPHS
+2.0
CE (Mat) - Breed
+3.0
35
+2.5
33
+1.0
+2.0
31
+1.5
29
27
BWT-WPHS Ave kgs
+1.0
BWT EBV - WPHS
+0.5
BWT EBV - Breed
+0.0
25
86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
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+0.0
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
-1.0
-2.0
7 February 2016
Change in Fertility Traits
cms
34
EBV
(cms)
+3.0
Scrotal Size
35
Scrotal Size
SS EBV - WPHS
SS EBV - Breed
Trendline
+2.5
Days
315
Days to Calving
DtC EBV - WPHS
DtC EBV - Breed
Trendline
310
R² = 0.2459
+2.0
33
EBV
(Days)
+2.0
Days to Calving
305
R² = 0.6373
+1.5
32
+1.5
+1.0
+0.5
+0.0
-0.5
300
-1.0
+1.0
31
-1.5
295
+0.5
30
+0.0
-2.0
-2.5
290
-3.0
29
-0.5
87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 13
285
-3.5
89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09
7 February 2016
Change in Carcase Traits
cm2
EBV
(cm2) +3.5
Eye Muscle Area
75
Eye Muscle Area
EMA EBV - WPHS
EMA EBV - Breed
Trendline
73
71
R² = 0.0449
69
mm
+3.0
5
+2.5
4.5
+2.0
4
+1.5
3.5
EBV
(mm) +0.8
Rib Fat
5.5
Rib Fat Scan
Rib Fat EBV - WPHS
Rib Fat EBV - Breed
Trendline
R² = 0.1961
+0.7
+0.6
+0.5
67
65
+0.4
63
+0.3
61
+1.0
3
+0.5
2.5
+0.0
2
+0.2
59
57
55
88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
%
Intramuscular Fat%
2.9
2.5
+0.0
88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
EBV
(%) +0.6
+0.8
+0.5
+0.7
Intramuscular Fat%
IMF% EBV - WPHS
IMF% EBV - Breed
Trendline
2.7
+0.1
+0.4
RBY% EBV
RBY% - WPHS
RBY% - Breed
+0.6
+0.5
+0.3
R² = 0.3477
+0.4
2.3
+0.2
2.1
+0.1
+0.2
+0.0
+0.1
1.9
-0.1
+0.3
+0.0
-0.1
1.7
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
-0.2
-0.2
1.5
-0.3
97
98
99
00
01
Retail Beef Yield%
Genetic Trend
02
03
04
05
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 14
06
07
08
09
10
-0.3
7 February 2016
Key Messages
To address the topic of moving towards a more sustainable beef production system, I
first gave attention to the production system itself. The easiest way to achieve increases
in profitability is to address issues like calving dates to better match your environment,
getting the stocking rate and herd structure right and creating a reproductively efficient
cow herd in your particular operating environment. Rather than being about
maximising sale price, beef enterprise sustainability is about producing a market
acceptable beef product at a lower cost of production.
The key messages are:
 It is important to identify and develop a deep understanding of the main profit
drivers in our production system in our own operating environment
 A fertile and efficient cow herd is a key component of any profitable beef
enterprise
 Beef herd managers need a disciplined approach to mating age, tight joining
periods and culling policies to develop a reproductively efficient breeding herd
 In the longer term, driving ongoing genetic improvement though bull selection
and cow herd screening in their production environment will continue to improve
beef herd performance
 BREEDPLAN® EBVs work!
 Selection Indexes are a valuable tool to drive the improvement in the mix of
genetic traits that affect herd profitability. The extra profit derived from the ongoing quest to make genetic gains is the foundation for a sustainable beef
business.
Locke Paper for Aldam Stockmans School 2012
Page 15
7 February 2016