Hair coat is the best indicator of animal health and well-being. A healthy and adapted beef animal will have a vibrant-looking hair coat – slick and shiny in the summer and cuddly-looking in the winter. In contrast, an unhealthy and/or unadapted animal will have a dull, dead-looking hair coat.
Hair coat is very important – but I believe an animal’s ability to shed off quickly and completely in the spring is even more important. The late Jan Bonsma said, “In selecting livestock for functional efficiency there is no single factor which can give such positive results as early hair shedding. Animals can shed their hair early in the spring only if they are well adapted to their environment, are in good nutritional status, and have the correct hormonal balance.”
If you live in a hot, humid environment, you can start evaluating animals for early shedding as early as March. Mid-May through mid-June is a good time to evaluate hair shedding in more temperate environments. Cattle will always shed their hair from front to back and from topline to belly. In other words, shedding will begin with the head and neck. Next to shed will be the topline, followed by the sides. The last areas to shed will be the underline and legs.
Many producers in northern climates mistakenly believe they don’t need to worry about hair coat or hair shedding. As previously stated, however, the best and most adapted animals will be the early-shedding animals with a good year-round hair coat – no matter where they are located.
Since hair coat and hair shedding are moderate to highly heritable traits, Pharo Cattle Company™ has been observing and scoring hair coat for the past 30 years. The fall of 2006, however, was the first time we put hair coat scores in our bull sale catalogs. We evaluate and score our bulls in the summer. Our scoring is the reverse of what you see in the illustration above. Our 5-star hair coat is as good as it gets. It’s so shiny you can almost see your reflection. A 3-star hair coat is about average. See pictures of three PCC AI Sires below.
Pharo Cattle Company™ is currently developing 640 bulls on grass in preparation for our four fall bull sales. We will have bull sales in Nebraska, Colorado, Alabama and Montana. All of the bulls will be evaluated and scored for hair coat, in addition to 14 other genetic traits. No one provides you with as much useful information as we do.