Agricultural News
Kansas Angus Producer Keeps Balanced Approach to Genetics
Wed, 13 Aug 2014 16:03:24 CDT
Whether you are selling a calf crop, finished cattle to a packing house or a chef cooking a steak for the consumer, the beef industry is built upon personal relationships.
Frank Hinkson, a seedstock producer from Cottonwood Falls, Kansas understands that and he knows his service must be just as high in quality as the Angus genetics he sells.
"For customer service I think that's the most important thing we can do is offer them a good product that they will want to come back and buy more bulls from us in the future," Hinkson said.
Creating that good product starts with setting a foundation based on traits customer want most like calving ease and docility, then Hinkson adds superior carcass traits to create high quality beef.
"Cattle in the end they all wind up in the feedlot sooner or later, so you need an animal that will not only perform but will grade and hang up a good carcass so they need to be efficient as far as how they gain but also a good quality animal at the same time," Hinkson said.
In creating that consumer driven produce, he has to remember to keep a balance among the traits.
"I think the main thing is we don't really breed for the extremes in any one trait," Hinkson said. "We try to take five or six what we call the more economical important traits to beef industry.... moderate birth weight, good weaning weight, we look at some carcass traits - marbling and ribeye and we put docility in there as well."
Avoiding extremes has helped lead his operation to success, providing customers the genetics they want at a price they can afford.
"You have to look at the total picture of things, what an animal will do, not just one aspect of it," Hinkson said. "That's we try to do in take a balanced approach to selecting genetics and that's we called our bull sale the optimum performance bull sale - you probably won't see the top dollar beef bull in our sale offering, probably not even the highest marbling bull that there is, but we try to select for a number....I'd say six or seven what we think are very meaningful traits as far as to the industry and to have those above average in all of those traits."
Hinkson said their cattle may not dominate in one trait but they are above average in all of those different traits. He said that way you get a balanced trait animal that will not only do well in all of those traits but also perform.
Figuring out the right mix isn't always easy, but Hinkson is proud to breed genetics that help his customers raise high quality Angus beef.
Click on the play button in the screen below to watch the rest of Angus VNR's video over retained ownership and more from Frank Hinkson.
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