Lowline Cattle Offer Alternative

 There’s a sign over one of the Lowline pens at the National Western Stock Show.

“Small has it all,” the sign proclaims.

And as far as Rick and Charleen Mellott of Carr are concerned, the sign says it all.
They have four head of Lowline cattle, sometimes — mistakenly, Charleen will say — called miniature Angus, that they are showing this week at the National Western.

“They are the original line of Aberdeen-Angus. They aren’t miniatures,” she said. The Aberdeen-Angus breed of Scotland is arguably the best known and most numerous beef cattle breed in the world. But Lowlines also are said to be the result of a 30-year research project conducted by the New South Wales State Department of Agriculture in Australia, thus the term Australian Lowline is used by some.

Either way, the animals aren’t very big — a mature bull such as the Mellotts’ SC Shane weighs about 1,300 pounds compared with an Angus bull that can go a ton or more, while a cow will mature at about 900 pounds, or about half the weight of her Angus counterpart.

But, Charleen said, they are perfect for ranchers with small acreages, and the steers they butcher produce a quality piece of beef.

“They are naturally, grass finished,” she said. A steer will be ready for slaughter at 690 pounds and will produce a carcass of 420 pounds of meat, a much higher percentage than other breeds. “And it’s very good meat. The tenderness of the meat on these guys is just amazing. They have a larger rib-eye than a regular Angus.”

The Mellotts — he works for a water and soil testing company and she was in social services until being laid off last year — started with a nonfull-blooded Lowline heifer they bought at the 2001 National Western and have grown their herd to 15 to 20.
They enjoy showing their cattle, selling them to other breeders, which they plan to do at the National Western, and raising them for meat.

They have four head at the National Western, including the bull they consigned for the National Lowline Sale on Tuesday afternoon. The heifers, both percentage and full-blooded, will be entered in various shows through Thursday, and they may sell a couple of them.

Rick said the bull, a 3-year-old, isn’t a perfect representative of the breed, but he’s won his share of ribbons and trophies at the 2007 National Western, as well as at livestock shows in Houston, Kansas City and the Iowa State Fair.

“We’ve got him bred to some of our heifers at home, but he’s at the point now where we need to sell him and move on,” he said.