Pedigree: 'the head only ends up in the skip anyway'

While this year is an exception, generally around now you’d often hear arguments at sales about where animals may be placed in the line-up.

Some of them often go like so:

Spectator A: “That’s some bull in second!”

Spectator B: “Are you mad, did you see the dirty old head up on him?”

Spectator A: “Doesn’t the head only end up in the skip anyway, look at the body on him!”

You’ll have some for and totally against the latter comment.

One person who would be very much against is well-known cattle judge and international business manager for Trans Ova Genetics PJ Budler.

All parts correlate

He says that all body parts correlate, right from the nose to the very tip of the tail, and that the head alone can tell you a great deal.

The man who has judged in 31 countries said: “Once you see a bull or a cow's head, you know what’s coming behind it.”

While explaining his point of view, he highlighted two types of bull heads.

The first type (left of the picture above) is a masculine head, with not a tremendous amount of length from his nose to the poll. There is a lot of width between the eyes, with the eyes sunken into his head. A prominent jaw and a wide muzzle.

PJ said: “You are going to see that this type of bull fattens easier, is early maturing and has a natural thickness. One of the key parts of his head is the wide muzzle.

“There are some outliers, but generally the width of the muzzle and the width between the pin bones is exactly the same. If you see a male or a female with a very narrow muzzle, they're generally not very thick because it all correlates.

“This bull type also correlates with good temperament and good testicle size for age.”

When describing the second bull (right-hand side of the picture above), he said the animal has a longer skull, a more refined jaw and smaller muzzle. He's longer from the poll to nose and is bug-eyed (not much of an eyebrow or sticking out).

He added: “The correlation with this type is a later-maturing animal, not as easy fleshing, generally a little narrower. Shape of his eye and eye set generally means you’re going to have some temperament issues.

“This bull also doesn’t have softness through his throat and dewlap, so he's going to be an animal who’s going to take a lot more feed to put on fat.”

So the next time someone says look at that sweet head, it may be worth looking!