Adjust Sights To Aim for High-Quality Beef

Adjust Sights To Aim for High-Quality Beef

July 24, 2006

A tenth of an inch can’t make much difference.

Try telling that to an Olympic silver medalist who missed the gold by a hair’s breadth, or to a heart surgeon, a machinist or a bomb squad leader. Try feeding cattle and missing the grid premium because of smidgen too much, or too little, fat on a steer. There’s a feeling of regret — so near and yet so far.

Cattle feeders often sell finished animals based on estimated fat cover. They also keep an eye on the markets and adjust days on feed for genetics or source of cattle if they know those things. Mainly, they look for indicators that back fat is starting to pile on faster than muscling.

Traditionally, the estimated fat thickness that says it’s time to sell has been 0.4 inch (in.). But the beef industry keeps discovering more reasons to manage by cattle type and product target. New evidence suggests the 0.4-in. rule falls short if cattle have the potential to hit high-quality beef targets.

Larry Corah and Mark McCully of Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB®) recently reviewed university studies and company data on the subject. Results suggest there is a fine line between too much and not enough fat cover.

Of course, not all cattle in a pen will reach their ideal end point at the same time. That’s why cattle feeders who aim for quality premiums sort cattle for sale. They give the nod to certain cattle from several pens to make a truckload that can earn carcass premiums but avoid discounts for being too fat, heavy or light. To make that work, they have to understand the relationships between muscling, fat cover and intramuscular fat, Corah says.

“In a typical pen of cattle, fat cover variation can be huge,” he says. “It can be less than 0.3 inch up to 0.8, 0.9 or even an inch of fat cover.” Some of that goes along with variations in age and weight, Corah notes. An ideal bracket for fat cover in cattle accepted for the Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®) brand is higher than the 0.4- to 0.49-in. range (see accompanying table and graph).

“Compared to cattle with more finish, those marketed with less than 0.4 inch of fat cover show a tremendous reduction in quality grade,” McCully says. “Go past 0.7 inch and you have a little higher percentage of Choice and Prime, but less CAB and a big increase in Yield Grade (YG) 4 and 5 carcasses. Those discounts usually offset the quality grade premiums. Cattle feeders who make the most of a quality-based grid know how to market cattle at the appropriate end point.”

The ideal final fat thickness may differ by breed type, but the data suggest feeders should allow Angus-type cattle to acquire 0.5 in., but no more than 0.69 in., of cover, Corah says. The table and graph illustrate the effects of small changes in fat cover summarizing data on 130,000 Angus influence calves in six years of CAB feedlot and carcass data.

As fat cover increases from 0.4 in. to 0.5 in., note the more than 4% increase in marbling score, 15% increase in Choice and Prime carcasses and 34% increase in CAB acceptance. The percentage of YG 4 and 5 carcasses increases, too, but not as dramatically as when fat cover reaches 0.7 in., Corah notes.

“Ultrasound is a great tool for sorting, but so is the eye of the master,” McCully says. “Sorting visually or with the aid of technology, experienced cattle feeders are capable of sorting for a quality-based market. That includes taking note of new information that affects the target in your mind.”

For more information on the paper, ““Declining Quality Grades: A Review of Factors Reducing Marbling Deposition in Beef Cattle,” call Larry Corah at (785) 539-0123 or Mark McCully at (330) 345-2333. Details are also available on the Web at http://www.cabpartners.com/news/research/declining_quality_grades.pdf.

Table 1: Marbling score and quality grade by level of external fat cover, in.