American Blue the Ultimate Terminal Crossbreeding Choice for Beef

Beef producers have been benefitting when using a fullblood American Blue bull as a terminal crossing sire. Blue cross-bred calves result in increased carcass yields as compared to their dams. The American Blue bull will put more weight and muscle on calves. When using a fullblood American Blue bull he will pass on one myostatin gene and farmers/ranchers can experience on average a 7% yield increase, making the crossbreeding program more profitable.

American Blues have higher feed efficiency and use fewer natural resources. This breed is also noted for its’ hyper-muscular growth. This allows more meat on the rail with less waste. In a recent USDA study comparing the blue meat with other carcasses, the blues had 100lbs. more retail meat on their half. On average other breeds will yield 55-65% on the rail and blues will yield 68-75%. High feed efficiency, high yield, and high processing percentage with less waste. That equals green, or rather, blue beef!

Over a six year span the American Blue cattle were studied along with other traditional beef breeds. The breeds were segregated in penned control groups. The American Blues had the highest feed efficiency and costs were down over $70 on average for the other pens on test. Genetically American Blue cattle produce a limited amount of fat which produces twice the calories of protein. It will take more energy by other breeds to put on that extra fat.

The main thing is that you may not see any difference in a Blue cross calf at birth. We don’t see any calving difficulties using the fullblood blood bull for crossbreeding. Calves are born weighing approx. 75- 80 lb. and do not show the added muscle at birth. The muscle is a natural development for the breed. They are not born with extreme muscle but will start developing it at 4 to 6 weeks old. The one copy Blue cross might not look very different from the side but if you look from behind or from the top the cross should be thicker and be a heavier calf. What you cross them with also makes a difference. Some breeds have weaker forms of the Myostatin gene and will show more muscle expression on the first cross. American Blue beef is famous for its impressive muscling. This breed of beef outclasses all other beef breeds in carcass yield (up to 80%). When using crossbreeding programs of other dairy or beef breeds, it increases carcass yield from 5 to 7 percent compared to the maternal line.

American Blue animals are extremely lean, characterized by a deviant muscle fiber type compared to non- American Blue Cattle. This fiber type can result in lower maintenance energy requirements. Maintenance requirements of the American Blue Cattle were investigated based on a zero-body weight gain. This showed that maintenance energy requirements of the American Blue Beef cows were close to the mean requirements of other beef genotypes. Among the 18 breeds of cattle tested for this study, the blues were shown to be the most profitable. They used twenty-two factors to test performance including feed efficiency, feed cost, purchase price and average daily gain. A higher efficiency means the reduction of feed costs for livestock production which will therefore result in higher profitability and is what the ultimate cattleman is looking for.

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