Do your steers make the cut?

[CattleMan1920]

I don't sell steers because the demand for our bulls and the ability to sell them makes it more profitable for us to not cut them. However, I am tossing around the idea of cutting all non-AI bull calves in the future. Not a definite because if I can get $3-4k for a bull, even if it's a grandson of a top AI sires like SAV Harvestor, SAV International, Hoover Dam, etc. why would I cut him and sell that animal for $1k, unless of course, something was wrong with the animal that would not make him suitable for service. This is not just my opinion, several people I know have said "don't cut any bulls if they can be registered and they are of quality, you are throwing money away" I watch the sales closely in Kentucky and very few if any are comprised COMPLETELY of AI sons, most have AI sons at the beginning and then it's all grandsons or great-grandsons of top AI sires. Those sales produce some big profits on grandsons and great grandsons, which is why I mention this above.

James you have opened the controversial topic of castrating bull calves in a seedstock operation!

Let the fun begin!!!

I knew it would be. People will say "cut most of the group, and only save a few" but if you said "would you like $150k in your hands or $40-50k instead?" most people would change their mind very quickly.

I do like the fact that the steers can be moved out quickly versus the development of the bulls.

The main advantage I see to steering calves out of registered animals is that you have data from the dam and the sire via high density genomic epds which can give you some idea of how they would grade. If you have a sire that is in the top 5% for $B, Marb, ribeye, $QG and $YG and you breed him to cows that are well above breed average for those EPD's, I think it would be safe to say that the steers would grade pretty high.

 

[mwj]

Maybe someone could start a business where they could run the EPD's through a computer program and pay you to pop in a straw of sexed semen. It sounds like the way to get the top dollar by renting your cows and buying there feed. :cowboy:

 

[Bright Raven]

I don't sell steers because the demand for our bulls and the ability to sell them makes it more profitable for us to not cut them. However, I am tossing around the idea of cutting all non-AI bull calves in the future. Not a definite because if I can get $3-4k for a bull, even if it's a grandson of a top AI sires like SAV Harvestor, SAV International, Hoover Dam, etc. why would I cut him and sell that animal for $1k, unless of course, something was wrong with the animal that would not make him suitable for service. This is not just my opinion, several people I know have said "don't cut any bulls if they can be registered and they are of quality, you are throwing money away" I watch the sales closely in Kentucky and very few if any are comprised COMPLETELY of AI sons, most have AI sons at the beginning and then it's all grandsons or great-grandsons of top AI sires. Those sales produce some big profits on grandsons and great grandsons, which is why I mention this above.

James you have opened the controversial topic of castrating bull calves in a seedstock operation!

Let the fun begin!!!

I knew it would be. People will say "cut most of the group, and only save a few" but if you said "would you like $150k in your hands or $40-50k instead?" most people would change their mind very quickly.

I do like the fact that the steers can be moved out quickly versus the development of the bulls.

The main advantage I see to steering calves out of registered animals is that you have data from the dam and the sire via high density genomic epds which can give you some idea of how they would grade. If you have a sire that is in the top 5% for $B, Marb, ribeye, $QG and $YG and you breed him to cows that are well above breed average for those EPD's, I think it would be safe to say that the steers would grade pretty high.

I am certainly not going to identify seedstock producers by name, but I have first hand knowledge of several. Most steer a very small percentage of their bulls. Back in the fall, I was visiting an Angus seedstock producer whom you know, they were selling all their bulls. There were about 3 out of a group of 20 that were very rough, shallow, fine boned and no capacity. I ask what are you doing with those three. The reply was, I am selling them based on their quality. There are producers who want cheap bulls.

 

[Ky hills]

I don't sell steers because the demand for our bulls and the ability to sell them makes it more profitable for us to not cut them. However, I am tossing around the idea of cutting all non-AI bull calves in the future. Not a definite because if I can get $3-4k for a bull, even if it's a grandson of a top AI sires like SAV Harvestor, SAV International, Hoover Dam, etc. why would I cut him and sell that animal for $1k, unless of course, something was wrong with the animal that would not make him suitable for service. This is not just my opinion, several people I know have said "don't cut any bulls if they can be registered and they are of quality, you are throwing money away" I watch the sales closely in Kentucky and very few if any are comprised COMPLETELY of AI sons, most have AI sons at the beginning and then it's all grandsons or great-grandsons of top AI sires. Those sales produce some big profits on grandsons and great grandsons, which is why I mention this above.

James you have opened the controversial topic of castrating bull calves in a seedstock operation!

Let the fun begin!!!

I knew it would be. People will say "cut most of the group, and only save a few" but if you said "would you like $150k in your hands or $40-50k instead?" most people would change their mind very quickly.

I do like the fact that the steers can be moved out quickly versus the development of the bulls.

The main advantage I see to steering calves out of registered animals is that you have data from the dam and the sire via high density genomic epds which can give you some idea of how they would grade. If you have a sire that is in the top 5% for $B, Marb, ribeye, $QG and $YG and you breed him to cows that are well above breed average for those EPD's, I think it would be safe to say that the steers would grade pretty high.

Branded, I very much see your point and am in agreement on leaving Bulls intact if you have a market and can sell them for significantly more than steer prices. That being said not all calves are going to be good quality, and those that are really behind the others in terms of quality should be steered in my opinion. I will also say that just because a calf is out of a herd bull does not mean necessarily that he is inferior to AI sired calves. i have heard breeders talk of other breeders steering those calves from their clean up Bulls, but none of the farms that I have dealt with have done that, some of them have some high dollar herd Bulls and no doubt they can have some good calves.
Just talking to hear my head rattle and throwing ideas out there, if you did not want to use your registered cows for commercial purposes, you could always buy some heifers from some of your bull customers. It would still be at least in part some your cattle genetics.
As for the statements on Shorthorns, there used to be a lot of them around here, made some nice cows too. They were probably replaced in popularity years ago by Herefords. When I was a child there were a lot of Herefords and still several shorthorn Hereford crosses as well as some blue roans. I think the color patterns hurt Shorthorns as much as anything.
My favorite cross is the BWF, you get some good doing feeder calves that way and the heifer calves are in demand.

 

[CattleMan1920]

James you have opened the controversial topic of castrating bull calves in a seedstock operation!

Let the fun begin!!!

I knew it would be. People will say "cut most of the group, and only save a few" but if you said "would you like $150k in your hands or $40-50k instead?" most people would change their mind very quickly.

I do like the fact that the steers can be moved out quickly versus the development of the bulls.

The main advantage I see to steering calves out of registered animals is that you have data from the dam and the sire via high density genomic epds which can give you some idea of how they would grade. If you have a sire that is in the top 5% for $B, Marb, ribeye, $QG and $YG and you breed him to cows that are well above breed average for those EPD's, I think it would be safe to say that the steers would grade pretty high.

Branded, I very much see your point and am in agreement on leaving Bulls intact if you have a market and can sell them for significantly more than steer prices. That being said not all calves are going to be good quality, and those that are really behind the others in terms of quality should be steered in my opinion. I will also say that just because a calf is out of a herd bull does not mean necessarily that he is inferior to AI sired calves. i have heard breeders talk of other breeders steering those calves from their clean up Bulls, but none of the farms that I have dealt with have done that, some of them have some high dollar herd Bulls and no doubt they can have some good calves.
Just talking to hear my head rattle and throwing ideas out there, if you did not want to use your registered cows for commercial purposes, you could always buy some heifers from some of your bull customers. It would still be at least in part some your cattle genetics.
As for the statements on Shorthorns, there used to be a lot of them around here, made some nice cows too. They were probably replaced in popularity years ago by Herefords. When I was a child there were a lot of Herefords and still several shorthorn Hereford crosses as well as some blue roans. I think the color patterns hurt Shorthorns as much as anything.
My favorite cross is the BWF, you get some good doing feeder calves that way and the heifer calves are in demand.

We have managed to have a herd completely free of recessives, I would be concerned about reintroducing a potential carrier that has not been tested. This is not a vote of no confidence in our clients, but none that I know of DNA test their progeny, not even with a basic Genemax test.

Maybe I could be considered too strict, but I don't want animals with the chance for birth defects. I have not had anything born for many years that was deformed. I've had a stillborn freemartin pair out of a Baldridge Colonel AI, but that's it.

I had someone tell me this recently "people think that steers should be your lower quality animals, but that doesn't make sense to me, I think steers should be as high of quality as you can possibly produce if that is what you are offering" I obviously would not want to steer a perfectly good Hoover Dam son that could be registered, because he would sell in a minute, but I once spoke with an out of state auctioneer and he told me "if you had 25 Hoover Dam steers out of Angus cows, I could get you absolute top dollar for them, and they would sell in a heartbeat"

If you figure that you wean them at 205 and finish them off for 30 days, then you could probably sell them for $1200 a piece, that is $30k for about 8 months work. But if you had 25 Hoover Dam sons and auctioned them at Bluegrass in a sale as yearlings to 14 months, you would probably average at least $2750 on the low end. That's about $70K for keeping them intact and holding them for about another 6 months or so. That's a sizable difference in profits and hence the reason it's hard to justify cutting them.

I'm serious when I say this, please tell me if my reasoning above is incorrect?

 

[Ky hills]

I knew it would be. People will say "cut most of the group, and only save a few" but if you said "would you like $150k in your hands or $40-50k instead?" most people would change their mind very quickly.

I do like the fact that the steers can be moved out quickly versus the development of the bulls.

The main advantage I see to steering calves out of registered animals is that you have data from the dam and the sire via high density genomic epds which can give you some idea of how they would grade. If you have a sire that is in the top 5% for $B, Marb, ribeye, $QG and $YG and you breed him to cows that are well above breed average for those EPD's, I think it would be safe to say that the steers would grade pretty high.

Branded, I very much see your point and am in agreement on leaving Bulls intact if you have a market and can sell them for significantly more than steer prices. That being said not all calves are going to be good quality, and those that are really behind the others in terms of quality should be steered in my opinion. I will also say that just because a calf is out of a herd bull does not mean necessarily that he is inferior to AI sired calves. i have heard breeders talk of other breeders steering those calves from their clean up Bulls, but none of the farms that I have dealt with have done that, some of them have some high dollar herd Bulls and no doubt they can have some good calves.
Just talking to hear my head rattle and throwing ideas out there, if you did not want to use your registered cows for commercial purposes, you could always buy some heifers from some of your bull customers. It would still be at least in part some your cattle genetics.
As for the statements on Shorthorns, there used to be a lot of them around here, made some nice cows too. They were probably replaced in popularity years ago by Herefords. When I was a child there were a lot of Herefords and still several shorthorn Hereford crosses as well as some blue roans. I think the color patterns hurt Shorthorns as much as anything.
My favorite cross is the BWF, you get some good doing feeder calves that way and the heifer calves are in demand.

We have managed to have a herd completely free of recessives, I would be concerned about reintroducing a potential carrier that has not been tested. This is not a vote of no confidence in our clients, but none that I know of DNA test their progeny, not even with a basic Genemax test.

Maybe I could be considered too strict, but I don't want animals with the chance for birth defects. I have not had anything born for many years that was deformed. I've had a stillborn freemartin pair out of a Baldridge Colonel AI, but that's it.

I had someone tell me this recently "people think that steers should be your lower quality animals, but that doesn't make sense to me, I think steers should be as high of quality as you can possibly produce if that is what you are offering" I obviously would not want to steer a perfectly good Hoover Dam son that could be registered, because he would sell in a minute, but I once spoke with an out of state auctioneer and he told me "if you had 25 Hoover Dam steers out of Angus cows, I could get you absolute top dollar for them, and they would sell in a heartbeat"

If you figure that you wean them at 205 and finish them off for 30 days, then you could probably sell them for $1200 a piece, that is $30k for about 8 months work. But if you had 25 Hoover Dam sons and auctioned them at Bluegrass in a sale as yearlings to 14 months, you would probably average at least $2750 on the low end. That's about $70K for keeping them intact and holding them for about another 6 months or so. That's a sizable difference in profits and hence the reason it's hard to justify cutting them.

I'm serious when I say this, please tell me if my reasoning above is incorrect?

Branded, what part of trying to agree with you do you not understand, no where did I say you had incorrect reasoning. I will restate it, I agree that if you can make significantly more money by selling calves as bulls then that is what you should do, if they are not inferior animals and not real far behind the high end of your calves.
Now as far as your figures on selling yearling Hoover Dam sons at a Bluegrass or any other stockyards around here, $2750 low end is about as fuzzy of math as I have ever heard, and anyone expecting that would surely be disappointed when picking up their check, if you are talking running them through a regular sale. If you were talking about having an actual bull sale there in which you take several bulls and advertise the sale to be such and such day during one of their cow sales times, like Amburgey Charolais does at Bluegrass East, or Horde Charolais at Bluegrass Maysville then you may well get those kinds of prices during a good market, but going through the ring at a regular sale time not that I'm aware of. My experience is that if you have AI sired or registered calves to sell, and you try telling it they just look at you like you are speaking a foreign language. I'm not trying to be argumentative just expressing the reality that I see. That is a lot of why I made that post the other day about how to make the KY cattle market better, so we could get somewhat rewarded for advances in quality.
On the subject of recessives, I would be far more concerned about bringing in disease than recessives. If you have yours tested then you know their status as far as known recessives and could be bred to Bulls that were free of said recessives. For the commercial herd the steers would be sold so carrier status would not matter. If any heifers were retained again breed to tested free Bulls, and if they were sold anyone could be up front about the possibility and recommend using free status Bulls. I do commend you though for being concerned about that aspect dedication to strict standards is admirable.

 

[True Grit Farms]

http://beef.caes.uga.edu/programs/georgia-bull-evaluation-centers.html
If your looking for good, proven and tested bulls for cheap to reasonable in price, the Calhoun or Tifton bull evaluation test sales are worth looking into. Real good bulls can be bought for $3000 or less.

 

[plumber_greg]

Branded,
I'm not a fighter on the internet, so I say this with respect.
It sounds like the only way you would consider feeding any of your cattle is to buy outside genetics, breeding to your bulls, and feed them.
Don't know how many cattle you have, but surely you could put together a mixed pen of steers and heifers to feed. If you can't, in my honest opinion, you are either in the " won't send my cattle to the feedlot, can't afford that" , or you are a multiplier of the Angus breed.
I've bought bulls from some of the best, at prices people on here would say was stupid.
Schurrtop, in Nebraska, 98% choice or better on 3 pens.
Nichols Farms, Iowa, all the carcass data you want, bought 2 bulls this year before their sale yesterday.
Dave Nichols is probably one of the most progressive cattleman know.
I once bought a bull bred by Virginia Tech, killed by a December lighting storm before I ever got to breed him to a cow. My luck sucks sometimes. LOL
GS

 

[CattleMan1920]

KY Hills, I understood what you were saying, and was not disagreeing. I meant a private advertised sale using the new facilities in Lexington. Ads in Angus Journal, Angus Beef Bulletin, and cow Country News. I agree if they were just taken to the stockyards you wouldn't make much at all.

As for the recessives, I figure that calves lost to birth defects lower your overall profits. I know a producer near me that lost, I think 7 due to birth defects, that's a hit on the bottom line and might have been avoid with either a recessive free bull or both the bull and cows being free of recessives. I am calculating that they are disease free as an absolute mandatory issue, that's why I didn't mention that.

We are definitely in the same page however.

 

[CattleMan1920]

Branded,
I'm not a fighter on the internet, so I say this with respect.
It sounds like the only way you would consider feeding any of your cattle is to buy outside genetics, breeding to your bulls, and feed them.
Don't know how many cattle you have, but surely you could put together a mixed pen of steers and heifers to feed. If you can't, in my honest opinion, you are either in the " won't send my cattle to the feedlot, can't afford that" , or you are a multiplier of the Angus breed.
I've bought bulls from some of the best, at prices people on here would say was stupid.
Schurrtop, in Nebraska, 98% choice or better on 3 pens.
Nichols Farms, Iowa, all the carcass data you want, bought 2 bulls this year before their sale yesterday.
Dave Nichols is probably one of the most progressive cattleman know.
I once bought a bull bred by Virginia Tech, killed by a December lighting storm before I ever got to breed him to a cow. My luck sucks sometimes. LOL
GS

I guess for now I'm a multiplier of the Angus breed. I'm making the most profit I can off the least land, and so far it's working. I may lease or buy more land soon so I can get the steers and heifers going, not sure. Land here is different from Nebraska and Iowa. Where I am located, everything around me is between $3k-$5k an acre. Picking up 200 acres is roughly $750k to a million. I can raise 75-100 registered Angus cows on there with an average price per animal of a minimum $2500k, assuming that I sell maybe 90 head a year, I might be able to make it work, If I were to go straight commercial, that $1 million dollar farm would become a burden if anything, assuming Farm Credit or a local bank would even lend that amount, unless you pay cash. Now let's move it up to 500 acres, which isn't easy to put together in a contiguous tract, at least not here. Let's assume you have $2.5 million invested in your land, you would have little room for error in a commercial operation. The barriers to entry are extremely high, it's a business that Warren Buffett would approve of.

The local banks around here are far more interested in lending on car loans and to buy mobile homes than multi million dollars farms. You either pull the cash out of your derrière of take on partners, or have alternative financing, which most people cannot pull off.

I may have go off subject somewhat, but it's so that you can understand where I'm coming from

 

[Lazy M]

I knew it would be. People will say "cut most of the group, and only save a few" but if you said "would you like $150k in your hands or $40-50k instead?" most people would change their mind very quickly.

I do like the fact that the steers can be moved out quickly versus the development of the bulls.

The main advantage I see to steering calves out of registered animals is that you have data from the dam and the sire via high density genomic epds which can give you some idea of how they would grade. If you have a sire that is in the top 5% for $B, Marb, ribeye, $QG and $YG and you breed him to cows that are well above breed average for those EPD's, I think it would be safe to say that the steers would grade pretty high.

Branded, I very much see your point and am in agreement on leaving Bulls intact if you have a market and can sell them for significantly more than steer prices. That being said not all calves are going to be good quality, and those that are really behind the others in terms of quality should be steered in my opinion. I will also say that just because a calf is out of a herd bull does not mean necessarily that he is inferior to AI sired calves. i have heard breeders talk of other breeders steering those calves from their clean up Bulls, but none of the farms that I have dealt with have done that, some of them have some high dollar herd Bulls and no doubt they can have some good calves.
Just talking to hear my head rattle and throwing ideas out there, if you did not want to use your registered cows for commercial purposes, you could always buy some heifers from some of your bull customers. It would still be at least in part some your cattle genetics.
As for the statements on Shorthorns, there used to be a lot of them around here, made some nice cows too. They were probably replaced in popularity years ago by Herefords. When I was a child there were a lot of Herefords and still several shorthorn Hereford crosses as well as some blue roans. I think the color patterns hurt Shorthorns as much as anything.
My favorite cross is the BWF, you get some good doing feeder calves that way and the heifer calves are in demand.

We have managed to have a herd completely free of recessives, I would be concerned about reintroducing a potential carrier that has not been tested. This is not a vote of no confidence in our clients, but none that I know of DNA test their progeny, not even with a basic Genemax test.

Maybe I could be considered too strict, but I don't want animals with the chance for birth defects. I have not had anything born for many years that was deformed. I've had a stillborn freemartin pair out of a Baldridge Colonel AI, but that's it.

I had someone tell me this recently "people think that steers should be your lower quality animals, but that doesn't make sense to me, I think steers should be as high of quality as you can possibly produce if that is what you are offering" I obviously would not want to steer a perfectly good Hoover Dam son that could be registered, because he would sell in a minute, but I once spoke with an out of state auctioneer and he told me "if you had 25 Hoover Dam steers out of Angus cows, I could get you absolute top dollar for them, and they would sell in a heartbeat"

If you figure that you wean them at 205 and finish them off for 30 days, then you could probably sell them for $1200 a piece, that is $30k for about 8 months work. But if you had 25 Hoover Dam sons and auctioned them at Bluegrass in a sale as yearlings to 14 months, you would probably average at least $2750 on the low end. That's about $70K for keeping them intact and holding them for about another 6 months or so. That's a sizable difference in profits and hence the reason it's hard to justify cutting them.

I'm serious when I say this, please tell me if my reasoning above is incorrect?

Your estimates are too high in this market for both scenarios: you'd receive around $1000/hd with the steers and maybe average $2200/hd with the bulls in a special sales auction.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

That holding them for 30 days after weaning will bite you with your buyer. They want them wet or 45 days. Crossing Angus and shorthorn will result in yield grades that will get you a heavy discount. Try and then tell us about it.

 

[True Grit Farms]

Selling second rate bulls is bad business around here. Here's someone who started with nothing in 1989 and have produced some excellent Angus cattle. And you can buy proven 5-6 year old cows, Kevin is a diehard believer that you produce your best cattle with every new calf crop.
http://www.yonfamilyfarms.com/sales.html

 

[76 Bar]

That holding them for 30 days after weaning will bite you with your buyer. They want them wet or 45 days. Crossing Angus and shorthorn will result in yield grades that will get you a heavy discount. Try and then tell us about it.

Bingo.

 

[CattleMan1920]

Branded, I very much see your point and am in agreement on leaving Bulls intact if you have a market and can sell them for significantly more than steer prices. That being said not all calves are going to be good quality, and those that are really behind the others in terms of quality should be steered in my opinion. I will also say that just because a calf is out of a herd bull does not mean necessarily that he is inferior to AI sired calves. i have heard breeders talk of other breeders steering those calves from their clean up Bulls, but none of the farms that I have dealt with have done that, some of them have some high dollar herd Bulls and no doubt they can have some good calves.
Just talking to hear my head rattle and throwing ideas out there, if you did not want to use your registered cows for commercial purposes, you could always buy some heifers from some of your bull customers. It would still be at least in part some your cattle genetics.
As for the statements on Shorthorns, there used to be a lot of them around here, made some nice cows too. They were probably replaced in popularity years ago by Herefords. When I was a child there were a lot of Herefords and still several shorthorn Hereford crosses as well as some blue roans. I think the color patterns hurt Shorthorns as much as anything.
My favorite cross is the BWF, you get some good doing feeder calves that way and the heifer calves are in demand.

We have managed to have a herd completely free of recessives, I would be concerned about reintroducing a potential carrier that has not been tested. This is not a vote of no confidence in our clients, but none that I know of DNA test their progeny, not even with a basic Genemax test.

Maybe I could be considered too strict, but I don't want animals with the chance for birth defects. I have not had anything born for many years that was deformed. I've had a stillborn freemartin pair out of a Baldridge Colonel AI, but that's it.

I had someone tell me this recently "people think that steers should be your lower quality animals, but that doesn't make sense to me, I think steers should be as high of quality as you can possibly produce if that is what you are offering" I obviously would not want to steer a perfectly good Hoover Dam son that could be registered, because he would sell in a minute, but I once spoke with an out of state auctioneer and he told me "if you had 25 Hoover Dam steers out of Angus cows, I could get you absolute top dollar for them, and they would sell in a heartbeat"

If you figure that you wean them at 205 and finish them off for 30 days, then you could probably sell them for $1200 a piece, that is $30k for about 8 months work. But if you had 25 Hoover Dam sons and auctioned them at Bluegrass in a sale as yearlings to 14 months, you would probably average at least $2750 on the low end. That's about $70K for keeping them intact and holding them for about another 6 months or so. That's a sizable difference in profits and hence the reason it's hard to justify cutting them.

I'm serious when I say this, please tell me if my reasoning above is incorrect?

Your estimates are too high in this market for both scenarios: you'd receive around $1000/hd with the steers and maybe average $2200/hd with the bulls in a special sales auction.

I'm getting my data from the Bluegrass Stockyards sales results and as far as Kentucky is concerned around 800 registered Angus bulls sold last year, ones that were recorded by AAA at least, and they brought on average of around $2750. Many sold above that amount. You wouldn't buy much if any at Boyd's under $3k.

I wouldn't have much confidence in a Angus bull that sells at $2k or below.

I can back up my data with actual sales, where are you getting your numbers?

 

[CattleMan1920]

That holding them for 30 days after weaning will bite you with your buyer. They want them wet or 45 days. Crossing Angus and shorthorn will result in yield grades that will get you a heavy discount. Try and then tell us about it.

Bingo.

So you guys are telling me that Shorthorns don't have any carcass merit?

 

[CattleMan1920]

That holding them for 30 days after weaning will bite you with your buyer. They want them wet or 45 days. Crossing Angus and shorthorn will result in yield grades that will get you a heavy discount. Try and then tell us about it.

Bingo.

It seems to be working for the Aussie cattlemen, and I think they know a thing or two.

https://shorthornbeef.com.au/shorthorn-cross-dominate-beef-spectacular/

 

[CattleMan1920]

Selling second rate bulls is bad business around here. Here's someone who started with nothing in 1989 and have produced some excellent Angus cattle. And you can buy proven 5-6 year old cows, Kevin is a diehard believer that you produce your best cattle with every new calf crop.
http://www.yonfamilyfarms.com/sales.html

Then that proves, accordingly to what you said that stacking A.I derived animals year after year is the road to success. Take the best A.I. sire you can use each year and breed him to all of your A.I. daughters, rinse and repeat. Never use a herd bull and if you do, steer all the sons and sell the non A.I. daughters. In 3-5 generations you have an exceptional herd.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

If you knew anything about shorthorn cattle here in the states you would know that there is very few breeding for anything but the show ring. Your not in Australia.

 

[True Grit Farms]

Selling second rate bulls is bad business around here. Here's someone who started with nothing in 1989 and have produced some excellent Angus cattle. And you can buy proven 5-6 year old cows, Kevin is a diehard believer that you produce your best cattle with every new calf crop.
http://www.yonfamilyfarms.com/sales.html

Then that proves, accordingly to what you said that stacking A.I derived animals year after year is the road to success. Take the best A.I. sire you can use each year and breed him to all of your A.I. daughters, rinse and repeat. Never use a herd bull and if you do, steer all the sons and sell the non A.I. daughters. In 3-5 generations you have an exceptional herd.

Just a different approach to breeding cattle. Usually the cows adverage more money than the bulls. I wonder about the longevity of the Yon cattle, but I feel like I'd of heard if foot issues or fertility was an issue. Our oldest commercial cow is a 2005 model and our oldest registered Angus cow is a 2006 Erica. I had plans to sell them this fall bred, but I'll bury them before I give them away. If they breed back I'm planning on keeping them for another calf. Your cattle are proven to hold up for a long time under your management style, which I feel is a good thing to know. Just hard on the pocket book.