Thursday, June 5, 2014

Irish Red Cattle, Number One Beef Cattle In Europe

By Lila Bryant


Nations all over the world boast of the various breeds, species and varieties of cattle they have. These types range from beef specialties, dairy cattle, farm oxen as well as those put into a myriad of other effective uses. Ireland is well known for some of the most desired beef cattle species around the world most notably the Irish red cattle, which has put Northern Europe on the spotlight for more than 8000 years.

Made in America for the Americans, but significantly applied by the people of Ireland, the breed bears the best beef cattle genetics known in the world. This genetic modification was designed to have the performance standards recommended by the cow meat processing sector in the United States. The successful development of these ungulates took almost half a century. The progressive thinking plan for these gene types was combined with instructions demanding that animals attain an impressive performance criteria so as to remain in the Irish Reds foundation blood. This resulted in superlative feed proficiency, improved fertility and above all, spectacular performance.

This work is attributed to Mr. Maurice Boney which can be traced back to 1960, in Stamford. He stated and fully dedicated himself to the task of coming up with the great ungulates in Ireland. He goes down the books of history as the father of unparalleled and most genetically powerful cows known today. His interest was to advance a cure to the ever ballooning demand for better beef producer breeds.

The unique breeds bear an inbuilt genetic predictability in addition to their line breeding qualities and close-herd aspects. This has ensured genetic quality of fertility and competitive production in cow meat industry. These results portray the outcome of a very seriously verified, intimately supervised, time consuming and engaging breeding process.

The heifers originate from beef Friesian genotypes with parts of their blood content coming from the ancient Aberdeen Angus traits which are then added to plain parts of the hardworking females. In this process, the excellent commercial females were designed.This was before the Friesian sires found in Ireland were imported to make up the outstanding carcass qualities essential in developing the best beef producers.

Maurice locked the books detailing the process of coming up with the red cows in 1971 hence concealing information about the Friesian blood.To date, few remain privy to this information. The whole process of identifying and improvement of the breed took a great deal of time, resources and strictly observed and monitored experiments. In the generation of these breeds, market specifications were prioritized.Some of these elements include softness, marbling and the taste aspects of the final product.

These Irish gems are optimally functional, good in structure, and greatly cut on the labor requirements unlike other breeds.

These animals offer reliable and predictable beef genetic types.Efforts to produce a similar breed in America are underway but currently an exact replica has not been produced.

According to the founder, Mr. Maurice, the reds may be preferred due to following reasons, 8688 among others, they are genetically pure, they bear genes with high concentration, they are fertile, the have high carcass quality, they are marketable and they also are environmentally flexible.




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