One of the major attractions of Cattlemen’s Congress is the wide range of unique beef breeds that it draws. Senior Farm and Ranch Director Ron Hays caught up with Dustin Hurlbut to discuss the American Chianina breed. Hurlbut has served the American Chianina Association as Chief Executive Officer since 2021.
The original Chianina imports from Italy in the 1970s were large-framed white cattle. While there are still some Italian purebreds around, currently, most registrations only contain about 6.25 to 18 percent of those original strains.
Chiangus they have been a successful cross for animals heading into feedlots. They are known for their muscling.
The breed’s membership is most prevalent in the heart of cattle country: Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. There are also strong pockets in Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.
“When it comes to the replacement females, these cattle are known for longevity and udder quality,” Hurlbut said. “When they get to the feedlot, the tenderness of the meat really stands out.”
The American Chianina Association has a strong Junior program that has grown exponentially in the past ten years, and the association is collecting data from feedlots to prove the breed’s benefits to a commercial market.
The Association participates in the International Genetic Solutions (IGS) program to compare their EPD data with other breeds. “We want to get more data out there to prove how good our cattle are, how well they do on feed, and how well they cut once they go to the packer,” Hurlbut said. “We are working on API and TI to bring some indexes in, and different things like that since we are through IGS just so we can compare a little more to these other breeds and hopefully, create a little more of a footprint in the commercial side of things again.”
Many old-timers may remember Chianinis as big, wild cattle, but modern ones have been bred to better dispositions. “Every year, we strive to make ourselves better, and our breeders and our members do, too,” Hurlbut said. “We have bred most of the problems out of them.”
Hurlbut noted that the Chianina breed is also very accepted in the show ring and has earned many top-five and supreme titles. “We are accepted on both sides of the spectrum, and that is what I think is really neat about the Chianina breed,” he concluded.
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