Lasater Beefmaster® Genetics —
the "Unfair Advantage" for the Commercial Producer
Beefmaster genetics are tailored to the needs of the commercial cattleman. When Tom Lasater got involved with his family's cattle operation in 1931, he didn't set out to run a purebred operation. His only objective was to produce profitable cattle. Ultimately his common-sense approach to breeding cattle for profit led to the creation of the Beefmaster breed. He understood that "good genetics mean good economics."
There is a tendency in the purebred business to chase the latest fads that often have nothing to do with economics. The show ring, for example, has little if any relation to the real world of raising profitable cattle. Most show cattle have been raised completely out of their element and have been overfed. You wonder sometimes if these fat show cattle could survive a whole year without a bucket of grain in front of them every day. The shows may be fun to watch, and they are certainly fun to win, but they have little to do with raising the right kind of cattle. The show ring lends itself to the extremes. Functional cattle can't be great in just a few traits; they have to be good in every trait that is important to production.
Focusing on any single trait is always a mistake, no matter what that trait is. One of the biggest pushes in the purebred industry for the past twenty years has been growth. Growth is fantastic. Who would complain about big calves at weaning? Bigger calves bring more money than smaller calves. So for the past twenty years, huge changes have been made to the gene pool of the American cattle herd, but little attention has been given to the economic result of such changes. The selection of growth without regard to other important traits (in other words, single-trait selection) can be costly and disastrous. Extreme growth results in enormous cows that require large amounts of feed in order to be productive and fertile. More feed and open cows add up to less money in the pocket book. Here at the Lasater Ranch, we select for growth, within a multi-trait selection program that provides the proper checks and balances. By requiring an animal to exhibit each of the six characteristics essential for economic beef production, we avoid all the extremes.
The Lasater program is actually very simple. We want fertile, trouble-free cattle that will produce high quality calves year after year depending primarily on the resources our land can provide. That spells profit. The ones that can do it, we keep, and the ones that can't, we get rid of. It's as simple as that. The right kind of cattle are the ones that can do it all, but they are not extreme in any one area.
Read more about the details of the Lasater Ranch Selection Program, and see how your program can benefit from the same approach, or better yet, let Lasater Beefmaster® genetics give you the "unfair advantage" every cattleman needs.