Rethel King runs about 125 head of registered Red Angus on his 120-acre ranch outside Harrison, Ark. They’re all-natural, raised with no hormones. Rethel said that if his calves don’t scan in at “choice,” he doesn’t keep them. Because of the extreme high quality of the cattle that Rethel produces, he is able to sell them directly to a local market at a premium.
Rethel knows choice, thanks to the development of his own technology and software, Designer Genes Technologies, LLC. Rethel said that his software can enhance the value of beef by as much as $150 an animal, and it can make the difference between having a choice animal and a standard. Not a bad increase, considering it only costs about $15 per head to have the animal analyzed.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to see your cattle, poultry, sheep or swine from the inside out – to be able to know exactly when to harvest? Just think of the savings in feed, time and possible meds spent unnecessarily. Instead of being a consumer in your pasture, ol’ No. 422 could be on a consumer’s plate being enjoyed as a T-bone steak or rack of lamb.
This is exactly what Rethel's ultrasound equipment software does. With a quick brush across the side of an animal with Rethel’s transducer, the software that Rethel has developed can give valuable information to the meat producer and breed associations. Beef, ovine, poultry and swine image analyses software have all been developed.
The ultrasound technology is much like what is used on a pregnant woman to look inside the womb and see her developing baby. One program, if used on beef, scans between the 12th and 13th ribs and determines measurements of the ribeye area, fat thickness, and the percent of intramuscular fat instantly.
With another program, Rethel said, “Technicians over the country capture the images, save them and send them to us to interpret. We have that lab software. Those values go to breed associations to calculate carcass EPDs (Expected Progeny Differences) on animals. Once they interpret them, Sherry has the paperwork in the database and she puts all the numbers together via the Internet and sends them on to breed associations.”
Sherry Parker is Rethel’s office manager. He says he simply couldn’t do this without her. He would probably say that even if she weren’t his daughter.
Designer Genes also operates outside the United States. With certified techs in Canada and Brazil, Rethel’s software can now be dubbed international.
Rethel’s colleague from Brazil, Liliane Suguisawa, acquired her doctorate in identifying genetic markers and is well qualified to be his counterpart in South America. Currently visiting Rethel’s Arkansas facilities, Suguisawa is so familiar with the software that she’s been known to scan 800 cattle in one day.
Speaking of their business in Brazil, she said, “The software is common right now, but when I started the company, it was pretty new. We worked a lot to let people know about the software, how important this is to our cattle industry. We have 200 million cattle in Brazil.”
The purpose of Rethel’s software is to improve meat quality – any meat, including chicken. Designer Genes uses its technology with chickens to ultrasound the bird in order to predict breast meat yield. Cobb-Vantress, the genetic division of Tyson, has used Rethel’s software exclusively for about seven years.
Rethel said, “Ranchers are not required to do this. It’s just another tool to help the breeder market his animal… The commercial man is going more and more toward technology.”
Rethel said, “It generates money for the farm as well as improving our meat quality.”
