- Increased weaning, yearling and final harvest weights on breeding and feedlot animals
- Cow size reduced by one frame score
- Retained for breeding purposes. In a study that involved more than 13,000 calves from eight states, docile (mild temperament) cattle returned more than $62.00 than aggressive cattle and even the restless cattle were more profitable ($49.00) than aggressive animals. All Kallion Farms animals must pass a strict disposition evaluation to be offered for sale or to be considered as an addition to the Kallion Farms breeding program.
- Feedlot animals have reached final market weights and desired degrees of finish at younger ages with less time on feed.
- Over 90% of our purebred Brahman heifers are cycling by 15 months of age and a large portion of our purebred Brahman bulls have from 36 to 40 centimeters of scrotal circumference by 15 months of age.
- All bulls and females retained for breeding purposes are evaluated for net feed intake (NFI), a measure of feed efficiency, using the GrowSafe System. Kallion Farms has used the GrowSafe testing system at the Beef Development Center of Texas for the past 3 years as the sole occupant of the facility and during that time more than 600 head of bulls and females have been tested. An eighteen unit GrowSafe system has recently been installed at Kallion Farms. This facility is designed for 3 test pens with each pen handling 50 or more head. This will allow Kallion Farms a one time minimum test capacity of 150 head with 3 to 4 test groups annually.
- DNA technology is being used to identify bulls and females for marbling and tenderness gene markers with over 2,000 head tested to date. Average rib eye area on purebred Brahman steers harvested the past 3 years (135 head) has increased by more than 1 ½ sq. in. to average 13.5 sq. in. at harvest time. Also Warner-Bratzler shear values for tenderness have decreased by more than 2 pounds per head on the 135 purebred Brahman steers harvested over the past 3 years.
- Five assisted births at Kallion Farms in the past 3 years with over 3,000 calves born.
- At Kallion Farms we consider data generated from large contemporary groups (100 to 300 head) to be the most useful information available to today’s cattleman. Kallion Farms cattle (bulls and females) are developed and tested in the same contemporary group into which they were born regarding specific calving dates and groups. We encourage our customers to use the animal’s performance EPD values, GeneSTAR markers, ultrasound information and the valuable GrowSafe feedlot measures as accurate and comparable information within the contemporary test groups.
