What's so special about Angus beef?
 

So what is so great about Angus beef. I see allot of restraunts talking about their 100% angus beef hamburgers. What makes angus beef any different from say shorthorn beef?

The Angus Association has done a marvelous job of marketing.

I like the part where it says Certified "Black" Angus - What is the huge difference in meat quality between the Red Angus and the Black ones? The only good answer I have ever heard on this one came from an Angus rancher in Texas - "the reds meat cuts are smaller than the blacks" - naturally I asked how he came to that conclusion - "The reds are so dang mean, I shot them while they were young!" <VBG>
But to be very honest - only someone that has butchered for a very long time and knows his cattle hang carcases by breed can come close to being able to tell what breed is what when butchered. When asked most will give you a list of breeds that that type of size and shape of cut, amount of fat layer and marbling can come from.

I raise reg angus breeding stock. Why did I choose angus? MONEY. As long as the market is there, I will stick with them. When the market changes, I will change with it.

FYI, any cow/steer can be sold under the CAB (certified augus beef) program as long as it has 51% black hide.

Angus is one of the British breeds. All of them are similar, but not identical, in meat quality. Any butcher should be able to tell British breed beef from others, like longhorn or brahman. The British beef is darker red.

Even within the British breeds there are differences. My uncle used an Angus bull to breed his Hereford cows because it gave him calves that yielded better (due to smaller bones) yet still grew fast (due to the Hereford's better milk). This is how you get a "black baldie".

Breeds like the Irish Dexter and Scottish Highland produce beef that is reputed to be superior to Angus, while the dairy breeds make beef that is generally inferior. Jersey is supposed to have a yellow color to the fat that some find objectionable.

A lot of the ground beef and most of the "commercial" or "good" graded beef you buy is actually from dairy cattle. The "choice" and "prime" grades come from cattle that were bred for their superior beef producing ability. This not only includes Angus, it is predominately Angus. Angus is the beef breed of choice today. A black Angus steer is the standard against which the others are measured.

So, if you buy beef at your supermarket that is marked "certified Angus beef", you can be sure that you're not buying the lower graded meat from dairy cows, and therefore you can be reasonably sure to get a good piece of meat.

Certified Angus beef can actually come from cattle that only resemble the traditional black Angus. Even the "black baldie" is accepted. You don't need a pedigree to call your black cattle "Angus" when selling them for beef. It's all based on the color of the coat. You only need the pedigree if you are selling your cattle as breeding stock.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

Angus is Not A breed I like, Wheres the horns?? If it ain';t got horns I don't want it. And the feed lots buy several different breeds and feed them, In reality you can't say that the meat is what the label says. I have been to several plants and see the cattle walk in and come out in boxes. Meat is Meat. beef is beef. as I see it. I know A lot of folks will disagree with me.

Travis is Right--Angus is the animal of choice
 

Angus cattle have long been known to finish out better than most other breeds. In addition, the Angus breeders and the association have taken pains to breed for commercial qualities--If you look at the artificial insemination stud books you will see ratings for fat thickness, rib eye area, retail values, marbling score, (intramuscular fat) as well as all the other attributes that a cattleman wants--calving ease, weaning weights, etc.

As a result, when you butcher an angus steer or a fat heifer you can expect a better than average chance of some fine eating. There are not enough Angus to go around, so the packers call anything that looks like prime eating "Certified Angus Beef". 'Taint so. Good eating, but not like the genuine article.

The difference is marked enough that one rancher over here who has around 600 mother cows sold his calves in truckload lots to a feeder in Arkansas who paid him a dime (this was about 5 years ago when calves were cheap) over market, sight unseen. Out of all those cows this fellow tells me he only registers about 25 bulls per year.

As Travis said, the market wants Angus, and the people who really know INSIST on Angus.
Ox

yep, them and the pork producers pretty much have things sewn up....

Go to the auction barn and watch... If the cow has a black tongue, it is Angus. This is in N.Y. I asked the large buyers about it and they said if a black tongue, then by "law" it must have angus blood. At least $.10/LB more on the hoof. It is purely marketing. Why do the kids NEED Air Jordans, or what ever? Marketing told them that is what they need to have. There are many breeds that taste better. I'll put money that a Holstein raised on pasture and propper feed hase a better meat than an Angus on a concrete feedlot fed chicken manure and steroids.

Just so no one misunderstands me, I like Angus cattle. I am exactly opposite James Dilley. I don't like horns on cattle, and breeding an Angus bull will insure that no calves have horns, and the buyers do pay a premium for black color. But the original question was what's so special about the Certified Angus Beef. The answer to that question is marketing, plain and simple.

I'm not sure what percentage of the color has to be black in order to be sold as CAB, but they must have at least one purebred Angus parent.

:) What's the big deal?? You cant eat the horns anyway!

Absolutely.....thats IT.

Reply
 

I think that's the way it's SUPPOSED to be, but hasn't been for some time. They actually did a survey of CAB carcasses last year comparing the genes to all known purebred Angus bulls and over 60% was less than 50% Angus genetics.

marketing
 

i worked for a cattleman in montgomery and went to church with the marketing slave for the Alabama Cattlemans Assoc.

I got the skinny on this racket, simply put- all the guys are choosing one brand and calling it the best. thats it, period. they have built up a huge marketing campaign around it and the stores share in the cost for advertising.

there is a lot of breeding and research for the right marbling and meat structure not to mention the feed composition. but when it comes right down to it- a cow is a cow is a cow. most people do more damage to the meat on the grill than the cowboy will ever do.

and that whole bit about not using antibiotics on there cows- hogwash, i personally have shot plenty of cows both in the field and in the chute. I have never seen a cattlemen hold back a cow because is was filled with antibiotics or the wrong breed or unhealthy.

all that said, its all business. no more credible or discredible than any other business.

Grading and 51% black hided constitutes CAB

In reality the breeding of Angus cattle to Brahmas will sometimes let the calves have horns, Its the Diluter gene. And I just like the look of horns and theres A market for steers with horns as roping steers then they go to the feed lots after they get to big. Thats why ,Theres A personal preferences. Everybody has them.

Angus has done a great job at marketing and when people will actually pay more for the same thing just because it say angus, then that's what the cattlemen will raise. There is a small market for horned cows for roping. But you can expect to be discounted when it runs thru a sale. Buyers don't want the risk thet horns present when loaded up for the trip to the slaughterhouse. I've seen Livestock Auctions that will lop off the horns as the cows are unloaded from the trailers. Two bloody stumps and crossed eyes never looked good to me.
My Grandpa raised Polled Herfords in the '40s, '50s and early '60s. To me that is a great meat animal. All breeds go thru cycles as to what is ideal, for a while it was thick bodies with short legs, then it was frame size, then percent of prime. Now it seems to be anything as long as it's black.

Polled Herefords
 

I was always partial to Herefords. I just like the looks of red and white cattle on the pasture. My intent was always to buy Herefords and raise breeding stock. Then I looked around one day and saw that there were darn few Herefords on the ground, and that they were taking a dock at market. So I turned to the business breed, the Angus. They are hard to find in the dark, but they sure sell well, AI techs are easy to find, the registry is user-friendly and they are thrifty, fast growing animals with no horns.

Angus did not thrive down on the Gulf coast where I was raised, but I see Brangus everywhere I look down there now. If you can breed the Brahman down to the point where there is not too much "ear" and no hump you have a dandy gulf coast animal.

Personally I had rather have cattle that are not black. However, I do like the premium black calves generate. Since I cannot keep all the calves nor do I have an alternate place for them I raise black as can be viewed here
http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i237/agmantoo/cattle/

I had to look hard
 

Agman: I had to look hard, but I finally found that string you are using to confine your cows to today's groceries. Wish you had shown us a comparison shot so that we could see the strip just before it.

I'd like to see what it looks like when you take them off it.

By the way--they sure do not look hungry.
Ox

jersey beef is quite good, its about all we butcher we sell all the black ones...

have a jerseyxangus solid black with black tongue, would she go at angus price? actually last time we sold any heifer that showed partial dairy brought more i assume because more milk for future angus babies.

Oxankle, I posted another pic showing where the cattle grazed earlier. As you can see they did not clean up the grass completely. Over the next few days the cattle will have access to the grazed area and will cleanup more thoroughly. In other seasons, I would not let the cattle back graze because the grass could recover more quickly at this stage.

Around here anything up to 3/8 or so is okay. Any more than that, and you start getting docked. And you're right; a little Brahman helps with the heat and insect tolerance down here.

I can only speak from our experience in saying that some of the tastiest and tenderest meat we've ever had came from angus beef.

My experience says that this is mostly due to how it was raised, how it was fed, how it was killed and lastly, how it was cooked. The breed has a little to do with it...but not too much. My families favorite beef for tenderness and flavour is Jersey......but there again, it must be done right.

good looking animals
do you buy young and fatten them up and sell or do your cows have the calfs

Marketing, and it is only marketing. Beef can taste different not because of the hide, but how the animal was raised.



Jeff

mtman, thanks for the compliment! I raised most of these animals. Those that have a green ear tag are a product of my farm. The older cows(no ear tags) were bought as feeder heifers at a local auction barn. That is where I got the starter brood stock. I buy good bulls that match what I think my herd needs genetically to improve. These animals have never had any grain, I have never had a vet on the farm and I have assisted no more than 2 or 3 heifers during calving in the last 5 years. I did cull some of the original purchased heifers but since then have kept only offspring produced on my place. I do rotate bulls in from outside herds but I have a problem finding bulls that can thrive under my farm conditions. Purchased bulls lose body conditon on a diet of grass only. The bulls are worked hard however as they have 44 cows each and one bull does most of the breeding so he is servicing nearly 88 cows. I will post a pic of the dominant bull in his working clothes if you want to see him. He is a little haggard.

yes i would like to see
im thinking of putting out one of those solid tub feeders have you ever used them

good looking bull the one we picked is only 14 months has some growing to do how old is he

here is the replacement for the above bull. The older bull is going on 5 years old. The replacement is 2. Notice the younger bull is more compact. I think he may be able to hold condition easier.
http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...=Cattle019.jpg

The Old Bull
 

Agman:

I've seen bulls in a lot worse shape. A fat bull is not a hard working bull, and as long as he is making cows give milk and raise good calves condition is secondary.

I agree with you on bulls coming off test lots and bull factories where they are creep fed and forced into show condition. Dump those into a range herd and it takes them fully a year to acclimatize. If you work them hard some never make it. I've never bought one of these, but I've had a couple of big time operators tell me of expensive mistakes coming out of the bull test lots. One fellow (and he is a millionaire, so it really did not chap his tocus all that badly) said that he paid $35,000 for one of these bulls and wound up putting him in the freezer.

Mine get grass and mama's milk, plus any cubes they can steal from mama in their first winter. At the end of their long yearling year they are grass fat and ready to go to work.
Ox

Oxankle, I agree with you about his present condition but Winter is just starting. He will look rough as Spring approaches. He was a "hot house" type bull when I bought him. A sheltered existence with too much grain and silage. He has had a difficult time adjusting. I need an animal with more gut so that he can pack in the lower value feed in order to build body reserves. He has been very fertile thankfully but his libido is diminishing IMO. He has one more year on my place. I also have a very young bull, number 3, that I kept from one of my 1/4 Murray Gray cows that I am evaluating. I really like the Murray Grays, just wish they were black.

I don't understand why a bull loses condition from breeding. Is it hard to do?

My little Dexter bull services 7 of his own cows and freshens the milk cows at two other farms. He stays fat and mellow. He stays with the cows all the time. He's the herd boss.

Now I do have a runt goat buck that stands about half the height of his does. It looks like he works pretty hard trying to breed. I could understand if he couldn't hold his weight, but he's in great shape, too.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

There's a big difference in a bull breeding 8 or 10 cows a year and one breeding 50 or more.

You won't go wrong with Angus or Hereford, those are the breeds that made the west..They are good mothers, good small bags, no bad utters, less pink eye, better beef, less calving problems, smaller calves, stronger calves that get up and suckle right away with good instincts...An Angus or Hereford will put more money in your jeans than any other breed....They have small calves that finish good and were they are really good is they deliver more live calves to market than anyother breed for more years....Nobody buys big assed dead exotic calves that died calving..The only breed that surpasses them in beef quality, crossbreeding genetics and live calves to market is the Highland, I have one right now who is wintering her 19th year and she had 18 calves.... when aged properly and with the marbling no steak can touch it....The commercial guys don't like horned cattle because unless you like them for rodeo they can be a lot of trouble....Although the big advantage again with the Highlands is when they finally do die their skull is worth $500.00 because of the gigantic horns for decoration.......

It depends on the age of the Bull, as to how many cows he can handle...Also how well you fed him before he stating the breeding cycle.....I cowboy about 100 cow/calf pairs each summer on my own land for other folks every breed under the sun...I put one 3/4 year old bull per 50 cows and a young cleanup bull, that is a total of 3 bulls...Things can happen on the range, bulls can fight, get a broken ---- etc...Flies can get bad and put them off breeding...You need the bull power....You gotta remember the bull is 50% of your herd and is very valuable...