Cattlemen's Evolution

We covered the process of artificial insemination in our last post, so here in part two we are going to talk about why we utilize artificial insemination in the beef cattle industry today.

Champion Steer of the 1950's

Champion Steer of the 1980's

 Evolution is occurring around us at all times.  It's difficult for us to see, but we are evolving, animals are evolving, insects are evolving and even bacteria and viruses are evolving.  Those who believe that evolution doesn't occur are ignorantly blinding themselves to the truth.  For example, the cattle industry has evolved from dumpy, fat, early maturing cattle of the 1950's, to tall, lanky, late maturing cattle of the 1980's, to the moderately framed, economical cattle of today.



These drastic changes in the cattle industry over the past 62 years have come about due to genetic selection.  Beef cattle producers have selected stock that they feel fit the bill for what the industry and the consumer wants.  As the years progressed, artificial insemination made these changes more easily accessible to every beef cattle producer.  It also allowed for these changes to be made more quickly.  Say, a rancher in another part of the country, or even the world has a type of stock that you want, if you go about it the right way, you can acquire those genetics and can thus change your herd more quickly.

Champion Steer of Today

The beef cattle producers of today are producing more pounds of beef with less cattle and using less resources such as feed, water, land, etc. because of genetic selection and artificial insemination.  Not only does artificial insemination increase the accessibility of great genetics to both large and small producers, it also decreases the cost of maintaining a bull on your premises for smaller beef cattle operations.  While a clean-up bull (a clean-up bull is one that is turned out to breed the cows that didn't conceive through Artificial Insemination) would be beneficial for a small operation, they are not necessarily needed.   Moreover, artificial insemination allows us to decrease exposure of bulls and cows to many different herds, thus maintaining better bio-security on our operations.  While implementing artificial insemination into a beef cattle operation can seem like a labor-some and daunting task, in my opinion, the advantages of using A.I. far outweigh the added work that goes into it. 

Cattlemen have used genetic selection to evolve beef cattle with the evolving beef industry since the beginning of the domestication of cattle.  Our goal is to bring you a safe, healthy, and economically produced product.  We do this through feeding, breeding, and genetic selection.  This is just another way that we're "Bridging the Gap"!