The_Ledger_Summer_2020

One Size Fits All

American Aberdeen Offer Producers Flexible Breeding Benefits

BY MICKY BURCH, CONTRIBUTING WRITER I t’s an everyday cliché often heard on cable television infomercials: “one size fits all.” While in most cases it seems too good to be true, American Aberdeen cattle are truly answering the challenges of both the large-scale rancher and the small-acreage farmer. American Aberdeen cattle were developed at the Trangie Agriculture Research Center in Australia in 1929. Formerly called “Lowlines” because they were selected at the research center based on lower yearling growth, fullblood American Aber deens are approximately 70 percent of the size of a standard Angus, with out carrying dwarfism genes. Neil Effertz, Bismarck, N.D., im ported the first of these cattle from Australia to the United States in 1996, and shortly after, the American Lowline Registry was established. Slightly more than two decades later, in the summer of 2017, the name of the cattle and association changed to reflect the heritage of the breed more accurately. From those changes came the American Aberdeen breed and, coincidingly, the American Aberdeen Association ® (AAA). Today’s American Aberdeen bulls are usually 45 to 48 inches tall at the hip and weigh 1,300 to 1,600 pounds. Mature females usually fall between 42 and 46 inches at the hip and weigh in at 900 to 1,100 pounds.

“They are a key tool to helping the industry in managing cow size – that’s their value,” said Kris Ringwall, Ph.D., former director, North Dakota State University (NDSU) Dickinson Research Center, at the 2017 World Cattle men’s Cow Efficiency Congress. Ringwall experienced firsthand the benefits of using American Aberdeen bulls and the changes they can make in a single generation. “We decided to use them on our ‘traditional heifers’, and we used them to minimize – to almost elimi nate – calving difficulties,” Ringwall explained. Many beef cattle producers have followed in Ringwall’s footsteps by using American Aberdeen in cross breeding programs. American Aber deen genetics can be used in a wide variety of breeding schemes: full blood cattle are 100 percent Ameri can Aberdeen; Aberdeen Plus ® are percentage cattle that range from 25 to 87.5 percent American Aberdeen, with the remaining portion being registered American Angus or Ameri can Red Angus. Moderators ® are 50 to 87.499 percent American Aberdeen – both the sire and dam of the Modera tor must be registered with the AAA as fullblood or percentage cattle. Moderator Plus ® cattle are 25 to 50 percent American Aberdeen, meaning registered American Aberdeen genet

ics must be present on at least one side of the pedigree. Utilizing American Aberdeen genet ics, Ringwall found that the crossbred replacement heifers retained out of those American Aberdeen bulls ma tured to a smaller, more manageable size, while still being able to wean a greater percentage of their body weight on a grass diet. “If we use American Aberdeen bulls, we can take 300 pounds off the cows,” Ringwall said. And that means more cow-calf pairs stocked on a given pasture, which can lead to a larger cow herd. In what Ringwall calls “land-based beef production,” producers evaluate beef performance – or efficiency – per acre instead of per head. “This smaller animal – because you can stock more of them – gives you the opportunity to increase calf numbers 20 percent or more,” he explained. Here’s how. Let’s say a rancher has a tract of land that will carry 100 1,400-pound cows, but the rancher is considering stocking 1,100-pound cows. Assuming an animal unit equiv alent (AUE) for a 1,400-pound cow is 1.29, and for a 1,100-pound cow is 1.07, then that same tract of land can carry approximately 20 more cows – or 120 head instead of 100. “You have tremendous opportu nity with 20 extra calves,” Ringwall pointed out. One of those opportunities is in the feedlot. Known for maintaining their muscle while downsizing, American Aberdeen perform well on a termi nal basis. Ringwall evaluated steers out of American Aberdeen bulls and “traditional” heifers in a commercial feedlot setting over the course of almost half a decade. They consis tently finished between 1,250 and 1,350 pounds, hanging more than 80 percent of their dams’ mature live weight. “We know it isn’t always necessary to have big cows to have heavy calves and optimal-sized carcasses,” said Robert Maddock, Ph.D., associate pro fessor, NDSU Animal Science Depart ment. Based on carcass data compar ing frame scores from a “beef” herd

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