to ultrasound it to find out

By: St. John Barned-Smith, The Houston Chronicle Reprinted from The Houston Chronicle.

Cattle Performance Enhancement Co. (CPEC) uses software that predicts future carcass composition in the finished feeding phase of cattle production. Recently, Lynn Allen, CPEC’s Sales and Marketing Director, had an opportunity to showcase the ultrasound technology. www.cpec.us

Floresville native Ethan Startz prodded and cajoled his black Wagyu heifer, Buttercup, into a "squeeze chute" in the back of NRG Center, then watched nervously as a rodeo worker locked his charge into place.

A few feet away, Lynn Allen patted down the heifer's pelt, then squirted a few long streams of vegetable oil from a plastic squeeze bottle onto the animal's left ribcage.

"With pregnant women, they use that jelly," explained Texas Wagyu Association President Rex Ralston, moments earlier. "But to get through the hair (of a cow's pelt), vegetable oil's as good as there is."

As Ethan watched on, Allen placed an imaging tool about six inches long on the oil-slicked pelt, then looked at stood at a small computer in front of him An image appeared on the monitor, outlining the striations of muscle and fat and two white lines - two of the animal's ribs.

"When you can't see those ribs, it's prime," Allen explained, pointing at the computer monitor, which provided more concrete assessments, like the thickness of each animal's backfat, muscle depth, and the level of marbling. Ethan had just started raising Buttercup in October, so he'd barely had time to put any meat on her bones.

Then the verdict "She's a mid-to-low choice — which is good," Allen said.

Startz, 10, was among the dozens of cattle rearers participating in RodeoHouston's Wagyu competition who gathered in the bowels of NRG Center to see if their work over the last year had paid off. In the alchemy of cattle raising, the composition of the animal's ribeye and its "marbling" — the saturation of fat through the carcass — commands big money.

Top-level Wagyu ribeye can go for $50 per pound in grocery stores, said Ralph Lee, a member of the board of directors of the Texas Wagyu Association In restaurants in Fort Worth, for example, that number catapults even higher, to around $142 for a six-ounce Wagyu steak, he said. Continued on Page 8