PrimeTime spring 2018

Hybrids, REPLACEMENTS and ON THE RAIL BY HANNAH JOHLMAN, FREELANCE WRITER

T he pursuit of maximizing profit is always the aspiring goal in the back of any cattleman’s mind. It is also the first and foremost goal of the Ameri- can Akaushi Association (AAA). For this reason, the association launched a new program, GridMax™, at the Cattle Indus- try Convention earlier this year. This new program is a registry, recording and com- putation service for hybrid cattle possessing Akaushi genetics that will offer producers another way to market their cattle. “The program has been in the making probably one and a half or two years now,” says Bubba Bain, AAA executive director. “I’ve been watching our cattle and how they perform in the industry, on the rail as well as in the feedyard, and I was just totally impressed.” Over the years, Bain has tried to come up with ideas to help members market their cattle in ways that would increase pro- ductivity and profit, and ultimately their bottom lines. This project, he says, was all about the data and knowing what Akaushi cattle could do. Akaushi cattle have been bred to 13 dif- ferent English, Continental and American breeds since the association’s inception in 2009, meaning a lot of varied information has been collected to this point. “We found that they don’t deter any other traits people have been working for or working hard on in their herd. But what the Akaushi cattle can do is elevate the pro- ducer in the final stages,” Bain says. “We all have to market the beef eventually, and the final stage is trying to get those cattle mar- keted and on the rail, to produce a product for the consumer that the consumer will like, or they won’t be coming back.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture recorded data on 20,852 DNA-parent-veri- fied Certified Akaushi Beef carcasses that

achieved Quality Grades of 44.6 percent Prime and 51 percent Choice with an over- all mark of 95.6 percent Choice or higher. The carcasses included 3,708 full Akaushi, 16,241 half Akaushi, 849 three-quarter Akaushi and 54 seven-eighths Akaushi. Notably, 85.2 percent of the carcasses achieved Yield Grades of 1, 2 or 3. The goal of the program is to get the AAA membership to concentrate on pro- ducing Choice, Yield Grade 3 or higher carcasses at the packing plant, something that would do nothing but bring them higher premiums and more bottom line dol- lars. In this scenario, the program would be used to market terminal cattle that are going to be directly involved in the grid.

Photo from Dove Creek Wagyu Cattle Company, Mountain Grove, Mo. “The other side of the program is market- ing composite, replacement-type males and females that have Akaushi genetics in them to where we can get everybody involved in marketing Akaushi genetics, which will in turn produce premiums for the folks as well,” Bain says. “If you want to get involved in producing anything that’s 50 percent or higher on the male or female Akaushi ge- netics, then we can start marketing those 

Akaushi Prime Time • Spring 2018

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