THE MEATY MARCHIGIANA

The Marchigiana is unexcelled as a producer of lean, flavorful, tender, well-marbled red meat that is extremely smooth textured. Tender, lean meat… that's the hallmark of the Marchigiana steak. It’s fat infiltration is very limited, enough to raise the flavor and make cooking easier.

Some carcasses measure just one tenth of an inch of back fat. In spite of this, it is sufficiently marbled and produces a tender cut of meat. In a test at the University of Minnesota, Marchigiana bulls out-performed Chianina and Hereford sires on Angus cows. The Marky calves were 7% more efficient in feed conversion than the Hereford crosses and 5.2% more efficient than the Chianina crosses. They were also superior in carcass evaluation; they had a higher quality of marbling, larger rib-eye area, only .5 fat thickness and all graded choice.

Marchigiana carcasses are well marbled with good cutability with some steers dressing out as high as 68% in tests. One Nebraska packer had nothing but praise for the breed after evaluating carcass results on 78 Marky steers. "The carcasses were very desirable. Seldom have you seen lean cattle with this much quality", said Steve Neill of Spencer Foods in Schyler, Nebraska. "You (Marky breeders) are doing something right with this type of cattle."

The Marchigiana is a terminal beef sire, which allows a crossbreeding program to expose a cow's quality traits. Color is a recessive Marchigiana characteristic, which usually leaves halfblood calves the same color as the dam. This feature eliminates buyer discrimination based on an odd color.

The Marchigiana has been exported from Italy very successfully to South America. It is in the proving ground of the Brazilian jungles and grasslands that this breed has earned its reputation as one of the most efficient gainers in the world. A cross of the Marchigiana and one of the native Brahman (Zebu) breeds of Brazil ahs become an extremely popular beef cross in that country. It is known for its tolerance of heat and insects and its fast rate of gain. Heat tolerance is an important trait in certain beef-producing states in this country also.

MARKY BULLS PRODUCE LEAN CARCASS

By R.D. Mingus, Dannebrog, NE

With the ever-changing beef industry, it is hard to find any constants. That is, cattle that will meet the ever changing demand for moderate size carcasses that are lean and tender. The Marchigiana can fit that demand!

They produce these very attributes; the Marchigiana and Marchigiana cross steers or heifers will produce a moderate size carcass that is lean yet tender. How can they be tender and lean you will ask? It is due to the lack of connective tissue present in the animal's muscle. This gives you the tenderness from the lean, less marbled muscle.

Now, it cannot have much taste if it does not have much marbling? Wrong. In a non-scientific taste test given to ordinary people the overwhelming response was one of tenderness and a wonderful flavor. People's response was the meat had a more favorable taste than the meat they were used to buying in the supermarket. Well, that's good news for the consumer -- how about the producer?

Let's start at the bottom of the production line with the cow/calf producer. How are Marchigiana, Marky for short, going to benefit me?

Start with the bulls, they are hardy, have climate adaptability, and a high libido. What does this mean? Well, when it is 100 degrees out the Marky bull won't be hiding under a shade tree, he will be out looking for that cow in heat.

And when it is zero degrees out, he will be out there foraging with the best of them. This means more cows covered with fewer bulls and that is an up front savings.

Now you are wondering about the offspring. More live calves, plain and simple. How? Well, the hybrid vigor of a Taurus x Indicus is well known to southern producers, but they can't take the cold weather?

Wrong. I have talked to several commercial producers who were using Marchigiana bulls and they all say the same thing when it comes to calving in cold weather.

"Those Marky cross calves are thin little calves that are up sucking so fast it is amazing! You don't have to worry about getting them up to suck, because they are up almost before the cow."

Savings #2, more live calves. How does a calf that looks like a jackrabbit grow - like a jack rabbit runs... "fast". Within 10 days those little thin calves are thick meat wagons and due to their hybrid vigor, are healthy and hardy. So you will wean off bigger calves, thus bigger profits.

As the calves move to the feedlot the surprises keep coming. They are excellent feed converters and boast heavy gains, which the data from some recent bull tests will prove:

Panhandle State Univ.: Pen of 3 bulls converted 5.1 to 1 dry matter.

Louisiana Tech: A Marky bull gained 5.18 lbs. a day and had a 7.5 frame.

Potwin Bull Test: 1993 - Markys stood 1st and 2nd; 1994 - A Marky bull won 2nd with a 4.51 avg. daily gain.

Markys do very well in the carcass department. They have high dressing and boning percentages. The percent of sub-primals is high in relationship to carcass weights due to their above average size of rib eyes. A heifer in a recent carcass contest yielded 65%, had a 16.7 rib eye and only 0.24 back fat. Also, 78 steers and heifers sent to IBP yielded 64.8% and 82% graded choice, the balance was selects.

Those things all mean more money in your pocket as a producer, no matter which stage you are in.

But with all the facts, color still plays a big role. So some producers have turned to developing composites with two breeds being used, but the primary one being Angus, which produces a black polled offspring that is very acceptable to the public.

These black offspring keep the black hair, but express a great deal more muscling and volume. They also inherit and pass onto their offspring the various Marchigiana traits that are prevalent to the breed. Basically, this was more to make the white hair black and keep all the wonderful traits that the Marchigiana possess.

But, there is no breed that could not be crossed to get that ideal of a perfect calf. So give a Marchigiana a try. You will be money ahead and that is how you survive in this world, by having an advantage.