Cherokee Hills - Carcass Information

The price differential between Choice and Number One grade feeder cattle with thick body condition and Number Two grade feeders with a thin body shape is from $8 to $15 per hundred on the same weight cattle. Romagnola will help you to consistently get Choice and Number One feeders.

Packers, retailers and, most important of all, consumers are getting more and more particular in their demands for lean, tender beef, with less fat around the outside. Choice and Number One feeders are the kind that grow into finished cattle that will satisfy their demands.

The picture below is what you would see with some other breeds. You will not build back fat with a Romagnola bull. The Romagnola breed does not contain the fat that is wasted as with other breeds.

Fat Steak

After years in the steak house business, it is very costly to absorb the fat cost on a beef loin. The fat was only used to oil the char grille!

Producing Choice and Number One feeders out of most native cow herds requires the service of a powerful, longer, leaner, more muscular bull, a bull that can add to weaning size and weight, and a bull that can add that visible, thicker muscling order buyers are looking for - all while maintaining low birth weights. For this reason, modern, progressive producers of feeder calves are moving, more and more, to Terminal Sire breeding programs, in which all production goes to the feeder market, and the female can be used for replacement cows or go to the feeder market as well.

Of the more than 130 breeds of American beef cattle, only a very few have remained sire breeds. Only a very few have escaped the tendency of American breeders and producers to select hard for the maternal traits in an effort to produce smooth, mellow, females. In most breeds selection for these traits have succeeded dramatically, so that even many of the once big, muscular Continental breeds now fall into the category of maternal breeds. As such, they no longer have the size, scale and muscularity necessary to produce consistently heavy, long, muscular, smooth feeder cattle out of most native cow herds.

Among all the sire breeds that remain in the industry, only Romagnola offer all of the qualities needed in an ideal terminal sire.

Rome bulls are powerful, and power from the bull does make a difference. Putting a good, powerful bull on a regular cow will yield a calf that ranges from good to great - referring to body size and style of the offspring.

Most Romagnola have a mature weight in the 1,700 to 2,200 pound range to give you calves that will wean in the 600 to 700-pound area at 6 1/2 to 7 months.

They are muscular cattle without any double-muscling. They have muscling on top, along the loin where the choice cuts come from, that will reach 14 to 16 square inch ribeye at 1,200 lbs in most cases.

They tend to throw long, tubular calves with low birth weights. Most naturally produced fullblood Romagnola and Romagnola crosses calve in the 65 to 85-pound range.

Romagnola are basically gentle with calm dispositions.

Rome bulls are athletic, aggressive breeders that will breed cows in any climate, from Mexican cactus country to Canadian snow. See pictures below.

Moterrey Mexico Romagnola

Ultrasound and slaughter data indicates that Romagnola produce very little in the way of outside fat, in most cases less than 0.2 inches, and no seam fat. Commercial packing house data indicates that crossbred offspring carry this same trait.

There is an underlying strain of Bos Indicus in the ancient Romagnola proven by blood typing that allows them to function well under extreme climatic conditions. Romagnola handle heat and humidity, as well as extreme cold very well. Romagnola demonstrate a marked resistance to external parasites.

The muscle fiber in Romagnola is extremely fine-grained and more genetically tender than the muscle of conventional breeds of cattle. This accounts for the demand for Romagnola and Romagnola cross cattle on the part of many branded beef programs.

Underlying the silver hair on the Romagnola is a black hide, and the gene for color is recessive; a calf sired by a Romagnola bull will usually be the same color as the cow. This means a black cow will produce a black calf.

Romagnola have a black pigment around the eyes that virtually eliminates pinkeye. Their hooves are black and hard, allowing them to travel easily over all types of terrain. When crossed with black cattle, most offspring are black.

It is fact that the average terminal sire program produces more pounds in production - that means more income. It makes sense that as Romagnola become better known, producers seeking increased profits from their operations will consider the Romagnola bull.