06/15/2026
A couple days ago, we posted about the tremendous shelf-life of the late, great Thermal Energy.
‼️While his son BSG Index 2072 appears poised to make a big splash with outstanding progeny in early 2027 at Gilman’s in Iowa, and a trio of red sons are garnering attention at Muridale for their look and promise in both their registered and commercial operation in Saskatchewan, another son has organically resurfaced on yet another continent within the last week.
💯What makes this Thermal Energy son noteworthy is not simply his ability to sire the heavy-muscled, attractive, functional kind. He has assembled the far more difficult credential, a progeny proof built on actual offspring performance. His cattle have demonstrated an uncommon ability to moderate mature size and input requirements while enhancing the type of profitable steers the meat packer’s demand.
👉In an industry where generations of selection have relentlessly pushed for extreme growth and more and more milk, often at the expense of efficiency and practicality, this son offers a refreshing alternative. He produces cattle that fit the modern beef business, adding value where the packer gets paid while putting soundness, function, and Stayability back under the cow herd.
🔥After making the Shorthorn Beef ‘Sire/Dam Selector’ smoke a little bit yesterday morning by plugging in pretty tough thresholds, I learned that
💥Spry’s Thermal Energy Q71 or “GLS Q71”💥
is actually the Highest Reliability Shorthorn sire in the Australian 🇦🇺Shorthorn Beef population for his levels of modern progress and performance balance after considerable progeny proof for this YW:CW ratio, while being a remarkable two standard deviations above the mean (Top 3%) for the All Purpose Index (API)!
1️⃣The Shorthorn breed on nearly every continent needs more moderate, efficient cows. Therefore, a reduction in size (YW) is necessary to gauge this until a Mature Cow Size EPD has enough data to be published by IGS. Ranking in the 70th percentile of the population is about a half standard deviation below the population mean, so about where we ought to be, when you consider reducing YW, without making small cattle. (Too much of a of YW reduction is not going to help your payday if you are marketing the majority of your cattle on the hoof. So we want to put some downward pressure on lowering the average, but not generate tiny, poor growing cows.) GLS Q71 is ranking right in there with daughters in production.
2️⃣Secondly, but maybe more importantly, the red meat fabricators are screaming all over the globe for more pounds of beef- but we just reduced cow size right? Well, that means we need to moderate growth while selecting for MORE Carcass Weight (CW) as is mandated by demand. This bull, again, after progeny proof with a CW EPD Acc of .55, is one full standard deviation above the mean putting him I the Top 15% for Carcass Weight!
👏Thinking about it logically, it is just crazy biologically-speaking, knowing that cattle like this can be produced [reducing YW while simultaneously increasing CW], but the Aussie population has several that can do just this at different rates, and about 10 bulls from their history dating back to 1990 that can stand with GLS Q71 on his levels of accuracy. However, it is this Thermal Energy son that is the highest API sire among those notable bulls, making him the most profitable in a production scenario where you are 1) selling steer progeny for beef and 2) retaining daughters as productive cows.
👑Way to go GLS Q71!
You are a sure-fire Genetic Outlier!
