KANSAS CITY, Missouri (April 8, 2021) – The American Shorthorn Association Board of Directors met to discuss the Shorthorn breed participation at the 2022 Cattlemen’s Congress and 2022 National Western Livestock Show.
The Board of Directors unanimously approved the 2021-2022 ASA Point Show System recognizing the 2022 Cattlemen’s Congress as a super national and the 2022 National Western Livestock Show as a regional show. The National Shorthorn Summit Sale will be held at Cattlemen’s Congress.
The approved show system will recognize five regions, each having two
regional shows, one super regional show and one national show. Regional Awards
for the five regions will use the four shows in each region for point
calculations. The American Shorthorn Association will recognize one national
show within each region and two super national shows for a total of seven shows
used for National Award calculations.
“We are excited to announce Cattlemen’s Congress as a super national
show for our membership,” said Montie Soules, Executive Secretary/CEO of ASA.
“Our new show system expands the available point shows to allow more breeders
to exhibit across the country. We look forward to seeing our show participation
grow for the 2021-2022 show season.”
The complete ASA Point Show System will be announced to our membership
in the May/June issue of Shorthorn Country and will be available at
shorthorn.org. The announcement will include participating shows for the
2021-2022 show season and point distribution for each show level.
About ASA
The American Shorthorn Association’s mission
is to serve all members and enhance the value of the Shorthorn breed by
managing data, maintaining the integrity of the herdbook, educating members and
communicating the value of Shorthorn cattle resulting in the expanded use of
Shorthorn genetics in the U.S. beef industry. Visit www.shorthorn.orgto
learn more.
American Shorthorn Association :
7607 NW Prairie View Road, Kansas City, MO 64151: Phone 816.599.7777
The National Sire Test (NST) program has been a valuable tool for testing the ability of Shorthorn genetics to perform in a real-world setting. The third and final year of the NST and our partnership with the University of Illinois provided us with more data on a genetically diverse bunch of Shorthorn sires. Once again, we were able to collect a full set of data on Shorthorn-influenced cattle from birth to rail. The NST provides breeders the opportunity to test the genetics in their breeding program in a real-world setting while gaining more progeny data on their sires. From a big picture standpoint, the NST gives ASA more information on the breed to show to the industry that our cattle have the capability to be used as a profitable piece of their breeding program.
As was the theme with just about every walk of life in 2020, the National Sire Test experienced some unexpected hiccups and changes to plans. With the Tyson plant in Joslin, IL having capacity cut due to Covid-19 restrictions, the cattle had to stay on feed longer than anticipated before they were able to be harvested. Like previous installments of this program, the ten enrolled sires were bred to 200 U of I cows at their Dixon Spring research farm in December 2018 for these fall-born 2019 calves. After weaning, the calves were moved to the beef farm on campus for the feeding trial and finishing phase. The cattle were on feed for a slightly longer time period than in the past. You will see this longer feeding period reflected in weights on these animals. Below are data compilations of all the sires from the 2019 calf crop. Data is broken down into steers and heifers by sire.
I want to thank all the breeders that participated in this program over the past three years. It has been very rewarding to see Shorthorn-sired cattle perform to industry standards and validate that this breed deserves a chance to play a role in the commercial cattle industry in the United States. Without the help and cooperation of Dr. Dan Shike at the University of Illinois, we wouldn’t have been able to make this project happen. Special thanks to him and his team for all their work, data collection, and being a gracious host and partner over the years of the NST.
March
brings spring and a time for new beginnings, including some changes at the
American Shorthorn Association!
Emily Velisek, the ASA Director of Events, Show and Membership activities left her job at the ASA at the end of February. Emily joined the ASA staff in July of 2017 and we watched her grow in her position during her time here. We enjoyed working with her and wish her all the best for her future in Iowa! She will be missed but we know we will see her down the road.
Matt Woolfolk, the ASA Director of Performance Programs, Performance Data and Commercial Acceptance recently got engaged and will be leaving us in April. He will still continue to work in his current position. We look forward to our continued work with Matt, even if it isn’t full-time. We are so excited for him and his future with his soon-to-be bride. Congratulations Matt!
Cassie Reid has joined us as Customer Service Specialist and Co-Director of Shows, Event and Membership Services. In this position she will provide customer support and assist with press releases and eblasts. She will also coordinate shows, events and communicate with membership.
Reid comes to the American
Shorthorn Association from the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds & Event Center(OEF)
in Springfield, Mo. where she served most recently as the Livestock Director.
During her 6-year tenure at OEF, she was active with the International
Association of Fairs and Expositions (IAFE), graduating from the Institute of
Fair Management in December of 2018. Most recently, Reid served on the IAFE’s
Young Professionals Initiative Steering Committee. Reid began her career in
2014 as the Assistant Ag Director at OEF. She is a 2015 alumna of Missouri
State University in Springfield, Mo. with a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural
Communications. Reid originally hails from Bosworth, Mo. on her family’s
diversified row crop and cattle farm. As a 4-H & FFA member, Reid primarily
exhibited Shorthorn & Charolais cattle & Boer Goats throughout her
youth.
“I
look forward to engaging with the members of the American Shorthorn Association
and seeing success throughout all aspects of the breed,” Reid said. “My
experience in the fair industry provides the confidence needed to see
association goals flourish, from start to finish.”
Wade Minihan has joined us as Customer Service Specialist and Co-Director of Shows, Event and Membership Services. In this position he will provide customer support, assist with DNA and weights and measurements management for performance data. He will also coordinate shows, events and communicate with membership.
Minihan grew up in Blaine, Kansas on a
Commercial Cow/Calf and Registered Hereford cattle operation. While growing up,
his family showed cattle at the state and national level. He was an active
member of the American Junior Hereford association, as well as, the Kansas
Junior Hereford association where he served on the junior board. Minihan
graduated from Fort Hays State University, with a bachelor’s degree in
agribusiness, with a minor in marketing. While at FHSU, he was involved in many
clubs/organizations on campus. Minihan was an intern in 2019 at the American
Shorthorn Association.
“I
think my internship gave me good knowledge and helped prepare me for this
position,” Minihan said. “My internship gave me knowledge of the Shorthorn
breed and many connections with people involved in the association. I am
excited for this new opportunity and look forward to working with the
breeders.”
The
ASA is excited to welcome two new members to our team. We may go through a
small transition period at ASA during training of our new staff members, but we
still will be available to assist our membership! After the two new staff
members are trained, you can call in and receive assistance from anyone in the
office. All staff will be trained to assist you in the registry.
The American Shorthorn Association will be featured on the The American Rancher on RFD-TV on February 1 at 8:00 p.m. CT. Be sure to record or watch this new show featuring several Shorthorn breeders.
If you miss it, the show will re-air on February 2 at 12:00 a.m. CT and February 7 at 11 a.m. CT.
The ASA Annual Meeting will be held virtually on February 6th at 10 a.m. central time zone.
Delegates, you have received an email with information about the annual meeting. You will receive more emails as we have more information! ASA members, we will send out an eblast as we get closer to the date of annual meeting with information on how to join the Zoom meeting!
Shorthorn exhibitors should be able to get into the barn on Thursday, January 7th. The time of move in will depend on how quickly they can clean the trash out from the breed before.
The ASA would like for breeders to be in the barns by Friday, January 8th in the evening. Cattlemen’s Congress has not put this time out, but we are hoping for this.
We have decided to change our check-in time to earlier as you can get in earlier. Check-in will be Saturday, January 9th from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (noon). There will be no check-in after this time!
We do not plan to weigh animals at check-in. We are hopefully, planning to weigh only Open Cattle one their way to the show ring as we are supposed to have scales for that.
Tentative Show Schedule (will continue to be tentative up until the last minute, please note some times have changed from what was posted)
Sunday, January 10th at 8 am Shorthorn Pen Show in the Performance Arena.
Sunday, January 10th at 3 pm, Deck the Stalls junior fundraiser
Monday, January 11th at 8 am Junior Purebred, Junior ShorthornPlus followed by Open ShorthornPlus Females then Open ShorthornPlus Bulls.
Monday January 11th at 5 pm The Summit National Shorthorn Sale
Tuesday, January 12th at 8 am Open Purebred Bulls followed by Open Purebred Females.
Hotels for Shorthorn National Show in Oklahoma City
Headquarters: Best Western Plus Saddleback Inn :: 4300 SW 3rd St. :: Oklahoma City, OK 73108 :: 405.947.7000 :: American Shorthorn Association Exhibitor :: Rate: $74.99 King, $79.99 Double
Hilton Garden Inn Oklahoma City Airport :: 801 S Meridian :: Oklahoma City, OK 73108 :: 405.942.1400 :: American Shorthorn Association :: Rate: $87.00 King or Queens :: Booking Link
As most of
you know by now, the North American International Livestock Exposition is on!
It was announced on September 18th that they are planning to move
forward and have the show, which makes us all happy after hearing Denver had
postponed. With that being said, it is going to look a little different at
NAILE this year. Please find the information below for what we know will be
happening at NAILE. There is always possibility of change. As we get more
information, we will do our best to pass along information to our
breeders.
Everyone
must enter through Gate 1. It will be the only open gate!
Health
inspections will be conducted at the time of arrival at the grounds. All
animals must have a valid health paper with official USDA 840 EID Tag.
All
cattle shall be reported Negative on an ELISA or BVD-PI test and can be listed
on the health paper.
You
will then be directed to the lot right there next to Gate 1 to receive your
packet that will include all your passes.
Barn
Badges will be provided to exhibitors. This will be by the amount you enter so
keep that in mind.
Exhibitors
with 1-5 head will receive 3 passes.
Exhibitors
with 6-10 head will receive 5 passes.
Exhibitors
with 11-15 head will receive 7 passes.
Exhibitors
with 16+ head will receive 8 passes.
The
Barn Badges will be like lanyards, where you can take them off and give to
another person. These will be to get into the barn. If you do not have one on
you will not be allowed in the barn, but you can be out at tie-outs or the
trailer. The facility is limited on the number of people allowed in the barns
at a time and this is how they plan to control that.
Participants
will not be able to enter the facility without completing the Covid-19 document
provided by NAILE.
Mask
will be required.
The
Pavilion (where Shorthorns are normally stalled), is partially being used for
Covid-19 things. With that being said, there is a possibility we will be
stalled somewhere different.
Stalling
will be the same as last year and we will be following our Stalling Policy. Please
see that policy below.
Bedding
will be pre-bedded. They will disinfect in-between each breed but will not be
able to re-bed, so be respectful when loading out and clean up trash. This will
allow them to rotate breeds quicker.
Shorthorns
are lucky enough to be on the same schedule, meaning we will be one of the
first breeds in and out of the barns. We will show Junior cattle on Saturday
and Sunday, and Open cattle will show on Monday. We will start Monday with
ShorthornPlus Bulls followed by ShorthornPlus Females. Then continue with
Purebred Bulls followed by Purebred Females.
There
will be NO Spectators allowed in the show ring. Only people with barn badges
will be allowed.
There
will be restrictions on the number of people allowed in the make-area with each
animal. We do not know this number yet.
They
are considering opening up the Sale Arena for a certain number of spectators
during sales only, but this has not yet been confirmed. This does not mean that
those people will be allowed in the barn.
Disclaimer,
this is what we know as of now but there is possibility this could change. We
wanted to get this information out to our Shorthorn Breeders to try and stop
rumors and help you make decisions before entries close. Entries close on
October 1st with late entries being October 10th.
Stalling
Policy; we will be
following the NAILE stalling policy.
NAILE uses our entries from the previous year to plan how much stalling
we receive for our breed. They will take a percentage away from our previous
year entries and then take a percentage away for no shows of current entries.
So, what does this mean for you?
We get less stalls assigned for Shorthorns
than what are entered. We advise that you enter more head then what you plan to
bring because we will cut down on your stall space from what you enter by the
same percentage that we are cut by NAILE. Please add space for tack to your
entries. (NAILE does not allow any tack space when assigning breed stalling
space)
If you have any stalling request, we will take them, but
we cannot promise that you will get them as we will be stalling where you fit
best. Stalling request need to be in by November 1st to Emily at emilyv@shorthorn.org,
in order for them to be taken into consideration. Also, please contact Emily if
you are coming or not coming to the show. Stall space will be made solely off
of number of head entered.
The Steer Profitability Competition (SPC) is designed to provide junior members meaningful exposure to the opportunities and challenges associated with cattle feeding. The SPC will not only allow participants to measure and compare the profitability of their own animal(s), but of greater importance, it will introduce young beef enthusiasts to peers, mentors, industry advocates, and experiences that are exceedingly difficult to acquire for any beef producer. Participants in the SPC program will be powerful voices as they transition from junior membership to adult participation within the beef industry.
By the International Genetic Solutions Science Team
1.
A new definition of contemporary
groups based on the age of the dam.
Regardless of how users designate contemporary groups (CG), all calves born from first-calf dams will be placed into a separate CG from calves out of mature cows. Given the vast majority of producers actually man- age this age group separately, it is reasonable to define their calves as their own CG. Handling these as separate CG will reduce the environmental noise caused by differ- ent management strategies and biological constraints for this age group.
2. Milk modeling updates.
The magnitude, and even
direction, of the correlation between weaning weight direct and milk, has been
long debated in scientific circles. In fact, there is a wide range of estimates
that exist in the scientific literature. Given that, the science team developed
a model that assumes milk and weaning weight direct are independent (i.e., genetic correlation of 0). In addition, with some of the other proposed updates, it was discovered that the evalua- tion solved more effectively when genomics were removed for Milk EPDs. In light of this discovery, the IGS Milk EPD will not use genomic information for the time being.
3. Different variances for different sexes.
Males usually have a higher growth potential than females simply due to gender. As a consequence, the variation associated with their weights also tends to be greater. This difference in the amount of variation between the sexes are set to a male scale in the up-dated growth trait predictions.
4. New DNA Marker subset.
As the number of
genotyped animals has increased, so has our ability to estimate marker effects
and identify subsets that are more predictive. Relative to growth traits, a new
(and larger) subset of markers has been identified to add more accuracy to EPD.
5.
Accounting
for different birth weight collection methods.
When we began looking into growth trait data, we discovered that not all birth weights followed expected amounts of variation. Some of the examples of reduced variation included weights rounded to the nearest 5 pounds, reduced variation when hoof tapes were used, and likely-fabricated data with little to no variation. Some of these data are useful, but they are clearly on a different scale and need to be treated appropriately. Dr. Bruce Golden developed a way to use machine learning to recognize unique features of each class of birth weight observation and predict how it was obtained. By accounting for the various categories, the genetic evaluation is still able to use submitted records that fall out of biological expectations for most scenarios, while more accurately accounting for different practices of collecting the weights.
Results of Updates to Growth Model
With these proposed changes, a considerable amount of work went into testing if the new models improved growth trait predictions. One of the most common procedures for evaluating updates to EPD systems is to exclude a certain portion of the phenotypes available, run the evaluation, and compare the correlation of the EPD from two systems to the phenotypes that were removed from the evaluation (higher correlation is bet- ter). For these updates, this procedure was used where all animals born after 2018 were excluded from the evaluation system and then comparisons between the current growth trait EPDs and the updated EPDs were made to this phenotypic information. The results for each of the analyses are presented in the following table.
Pearson correlation between parental average EPDs and excluded phenotypes from animals in the IGS genetic evaluation that were born in 2018 or later.
Trait
Updated Evaluation
Previous Evaluation
Birth Weight
0.52
0.50
Weaning
Weight
0.38
0.34
Yearling Weight
0.45
0.37
The results in the table
above show the evaluation updates had higher correlations to phenotypes
than the previous growth trait models.
This equates to more precise EPDs for
Birth, Weaning, and
Yearling Weight.
An additional trait that is evaluated with the growth analysis is the Milk EPD. A Milk EPD represents the genetic difference in calf weaning weight based on the maternal environment provided by the dam. Due to the nature of this trait being the maternal component of weaning weight, a different validation strategy must be used to evaluate the updated predictions. To evaluate the updated Milk predictions an expected weaning weight for the excluded animals was formed using the following equation:
This predicted weaning
weight was then correlated with the excluded weaning weight phenotypes. Again, the updated predictions of Milk had higher correlations compared to the previous
Milk EPDs (0.42 vs. 0.39, respectively). These results show that the updated
predictions more precisely predict the weaning
weight of an animal than the currently published
evaluation.
Breeders may notice
reranking of animals with the release of the growth trait updates. While the
change may be unsettling, the end results by every measure have shown an
improvement in the precision of the growth trait predictions.
This Friday is our last day in the ASA office and although we are sad, we
have thoroughly enjoyed our time here! Today we had a potluck lunch with
everyone in the office and we selected the Alabama Tropical Tri Tip Fajitas to
make! Kendall did the cooking since Cassidy and I aren’t as handy in the
kitchen. We have each put a little bit about our time here and we included the
recipe we prepared also!
Kendall:
Our time here is winding down, as Friday is our last day in
the office. In my final remarks, I want to thank all of the American Shorthorn
Association staff for having me in the office. These past couples of months
have been a blast, and I have learned many new skills that will help me in the
future. I came back to the breed that got me started showing, and I have
enjoyed every moment. I will soon pack up and head back to Stillwater to finish
my last semester at Oklahoma State University as an agricultural communications
major. I just wanted to thank ASA, the members, and everyone else for making this
a successful NJSS and summer for myself.
Cassidy:
As our time in the office comes to
an end, I would just like to express how thankful I am for this breed and the
people in it. Shorthorns were my first love and to have the opportunity to
serve this breed is one that I will forever cherish. I have learned so much
these past few months and I am sad that my time in the office is coming to an
end. As I prepare to head back to Starkville, I would like to thank the ASA
Staff, members, and AJSA members for allowing this experience to be as amazing
as it has been. Thanks everyone and, hopefully, I’ll see everyone soon at the
next show!
Abigail:
In just two more days we will be wrapping up our time here in the ASA office
and these past few months have been awesome. I am really thankful to everyone
here, especially Shelby, for working so hard to make sure that we got to have
an internship amidst all of the crazy stuff going on in the world. I know that
I’ll look back on this experience and cherish the memories I have made. I have
learned so much during my time here and although I started off with Simmentals,
the Shorthorn breed will now always have a special place in my heart! Thank you
again to all of the staff and ASA/AJSA members who make this breed so great!
Alabama Tropical Tri Tip Fajitas Recipe:
Ingredients
1 Tri Tip, 1 ½ – 2 lbs.
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup soy sauce
½ cup pineapple juice
2 bell peppers, 1 red and 1 green
1 small onion
1 pineapple split in half, save pulp
1 tbsp. cilantro
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. Adobo
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. smoked paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Marinade steak for 2-8 hours in soy sauce and pineapple juice. Season with salt and pepper on both sides. Cook steak on griddle for 6-8 minutes per side. While the steak cooks, add bell peppers to grill and turn occasionally to char.
Once steak is done to your likeness, set aside to rest.
In a skillet, add olive oil, garlic, and onion. Cook until the onion is opaque. Then add sliced bell pepper, cilantro, cumin, adobo, pepper flakes, paprika, and cook 3-5 minutes until the seasoning is well blended.
Slice steak into strips. Add to skillet with the previous mixture. Add ½ cup pineapple juice and pulp from hollowed pineapple. Cook until steak is warm, and juice is thick.
Add mixture to the hollowed pineapples and serve on flour tortillas with pineapple sales.
Pineapple Salsa
Ingredients
2 lbs. pineapple, diced
10 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 cup cilantro, chopped
3 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp. lime juice
Salt and pepper
Hot sauce (optional)
Instructions
Mix all ingredients well, season with salt and
pepper to taste