Thank you Butler Community College Livestock judging team for providing placings and officials for this class.
Placing: 1-4-3-2
Cuts: 5-2-3
I like the Hereford heifers 1432. There’s a tremendous amount of quality in the nicest built and best balanced 1 heifer that starts. Compared to 4, she not only reads neater about her front end and chest, but she transitions smoother from her shoulder into a softer body type and plants the most correct structurally which allows her to profile with a competitive look that’ll serve useful in production as well. I’ll always appreciate how practical and broody the 4 heifer is. However, it comes with a coarser front end, slightly forward knee and rounder hip that doesn’t allow her to match the quality of my class winner. She stays second.
Still, I like 4 to beat 3 in a middle pair of cattle that are completely different. Ultimately, the bolder bodied 4 heifer with the smoother jointed, softer pasterned, more functional hind leg build just reads more long-term. Certainly, the fresher haired 3’s impressive pieces of look draw me in because she’s the more extended, smoother shouldered heifer, that’s more correct about her knee. But work back and she’s tighter hearted, higher in her tailhead and not as functional in the set of her rear leg. The good looking heifer becomes a close third.
But 3 over 2 was my first impression of the red necked heifers in the bottom pair. 3’s head shape, front end, and initial read of sheer quality hit me as the more valuable breeding option. The 2 heifer with the smoother tailhead is still a practical bodied and sound structured female that’ll work, but of the pair of heifers without pigment, 2 does become the plainer headed, coarser shouldered one that just isn’t a stand-out in this set.
Thank you.
