Word: beef
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Today, smart cowmen are working with scientists' precision to put together the best beef animal. In the search for a hardy animal that can convert the least feed into the most beef in the least time, cattlemen intermix genetic strains, carefully card-indexing the good and bad points of the progeny, unceasingly experiment with new vaccines and antibiotics. The competition for prize bulls has become fantastic; one Texas breeder paid $100,000 for a one-third interest in an Aberdeen-Angus bull, figured the money well spent since the bull's first two offspring sold...
...Reds. The genetic experiments have produced some interesting new breeds: the Brangus (⅜ Brahman, ⅝ Angus), the Braford (½ Hereford, ½ Brahman), the Charbray (13/16 Charollaise, 3/16 Brahman). The famed million-acre King Ranch has the Santa Gertrudis (⅜ Brahman, ⅝ Shorthorn), claiming that it is the best beef on the hardiest animal. Last summer the Russian agricultural delegation visiting the U.S. took a look at the Santa Gertrudis and said, "This is one thing we very much want...
...feeding. In the old days, a steer grazed on its 20 acres of range, with perhaps some casual supplementary grain feeding. The modern cattleman, however, views his animal as a factory-like converter of carbohydrates into a protein food. Depending on weather and range, he may feed the beef a daily ration of two pounds of soy or cottonseed cake, fortified by molasses for energy, bonemeal for calcium, plus iodized salt and vitamins A and D. Antibiotics are added to increase the rate of gain and disease resistance; Stilbestrol, a female hormone preparation, helps to make the animal gentler...
...barn in Greeley, Colo., a huge, self-unloading truck moves unceasingly up and down the quarter-mile-long pens, pushing Montfort's special feed mixture into the troughs while a solid line of white faces eat their heads off. Says Montfort: "This is a factory. We manufacture beef and nothing else...
...process of breeding and feeding beef for profit has bred a lot of romance out of the cattle business. The closer the industry gets to its golden calf, the further it gets from its rootin', tootin' golden past. The cattleman has become a statistician, geneticist, chemist, endoctrinologist, pharmacologist, and market specialist...