There are lots of questions I wished Jerry and I had discussed, but we were young and I guess I foolishly thought we had forever to do so. And, those last couple years of his life we probably talked politics more than cattle.
BUT, there is one that I did ask, as well as allude to more than once, but never got a direct answer on. It was simply how big are you going to let your cattle get? One of Jerry's first goals in breeding cattle was to produce calves that would average 1000 pounds at weaning at 8 months of age. By the early 70's 25% of his bull calves were doing so. His linebred Sam 951 home raised herd sires weighed up to 1365 pounds at weaning at 245 days - - certainly a lot more than the average weights of mature commercial cows in the country at that time - - and had adjusted PRI 365 day yearling weights of 1500 to 1600+ pounds. At just over two years of age, they often topped 2500+ and much more at maturity. His top first-calf heifers at 2 years or less often were over 1700 pounds.
Like, I said earlier, Jerry never really answered this question. Jerry honestly thought that selecting and breeding for easier calving, small calves at birth was antagonistic to having bigger calves at weaning (and probably rightfully so), so the Litton approach was to select and breed cows that could have larger live calves at birth. He'd go on to tell you that since a cow twice as big as another doesn't cost you twice as much to maintain, measuring cow efficiency by dividing her weight into that of her calf at weaning was not as simple a means of evaluation as many thought. Yet, he'd admit his trend toward “bigness” would result in bigger cows more costly to maintain. And, he did compare such efficiency ratios between cows of the same weights.
In light of all the discussion in cattle circles today, it to would certainly be interesting to have had an answer from Jerry on “how big are you going to let your cattle get?” As sharp as he was he probably wasn't really sure himself.
Responses