Hair coat is an excellent indicator of animal health and well-being. A healthy beef animal will have a vibrant-looking hair coat — slick and shiny in the summer and cuddly-looking in the winter. In contrast, an unhealthy beef animal will have a dull, dead-looking hair coat.

     An animal’s ability to shed off early in the spring is another very good indicator of health and well-being. The late Jan Bonsma had much to say about this subject. Among other things, he said, “In selecting livestock for functional efficiency there is no single factor which can give such positive results as early hair shedding. Animals can shed their hair early in the spring only if they are well adapted to their environment, are in good nutritional status, and have the correct hormonal balance.”

    We have been observing and scoring hair coat for many years. The fall of 2006, though, was the first time we put hair coat scores in a sale catalog. A 5-star hair coat is as good as they get. A 3-star hair coat is about average. If you live in a relatively hot and/or humid environment, hair coat is a trait you should pay special attention to. Bulls with a 4 or 5 star hair coat should work well in the south and southeast.

    The bulls in this catalog have all been rated for fleshing ability. Simply put, this is the animal’s ability to put on and maintain good body condition, even with a limited amount of feed. When feed is plentiful they will rapidly improve their condition. Later this extra condition can serve as a reserve to help the animal survive the tougher times.

    Over the years, we have noticed that our easy fleshing cows seem to breed back earlier and stay in the cowherd much longer than our hard-keeping cows. There appears to be an extremely high correlation between fertility and fleshing ability. Therefore, fleshing ability has become one of the most important economic traits we select for. Hard-keeping cows will eventually fail to breed back in a program as tough as ours. Fleshing ability is a trait that needs to be bred in — NOT fed in.

    Easy-fleshing bulls should sire daughters that are easy-fleshing. Our sale bulls are rated with 1 to 5 “stars” for fleshing ability, with “5” being the best. We believe you should pay special attention to this trait if you are raising your own replacement females.

    At calving we give each cow a score for disposition, from 1 to 5. If there is a problem, we eliminate it. I want a momma cow that is protective and concerned about her new baby, but not to the point that she creates a hazard to my health. Every time our cattle are sorted or run through the chute we monitor and record disposition problems. We will not tolerate cattle that are nervous, wild or hard to handle.

    All of our bulls have been put through a simple test that allows us to give them a score for disposition, from 1 to 5. We sort each bull off by himself in an alley and crowd him between two people. This measures the bull’s comfort zone, as well as his disposition. A bull that will stand calmly, with no signs of excitement or nervousness, will receive a high score. If a bull gets nervous and tries to run past us he will receive a low score. Each bull is rated with 1 to 5 “stars”, with “5” being the best. Let me emphasize that “3” stars is not bad — it is about average. Many of our customers say our 3-star disposition bulls are better than the bulls they have been purchasing from other seedstock programs.