Is He Safe on Heifers?

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Lucky

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Bought this Ultrablack bull last year to use on cows and he did a good job. Would he be good as a heifer bull? I'm not up to speed on the EPDs.
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I bought him last February and turned him in May 1st. Cows won't start calving for another month. There was also 3 other bulls in with this bunch.
 
Would be buying open heifers that are ready to breed. I thought everyone studied EPDs to tell if bulls were safe to use on heifers or at least supposedly safe. I did a little research and it shows him to be in the top 5% for BW and CE, I'm definitely not EPD expert so thought I'd ask.
 
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Thanks Ken

When I bought him I bought a Brangus bull also. The Brangus bull was not a heifer safe bull but I wondered about this one. I wasn't buying a bull to put on heifers so never really looked into it. The bull he replaced was a nice Brangus bull that threw 50-60 # really nice calves. Unfortunately he lost a back toe and we had to sell him.
 
The EPDs would lead you to believe that the bull likely would be ok to use on 1st calf heifers. But EPDs are really just a statistical probability (guesstimate) -- particularly when little real world data has been supplied for a specific animal. If the heifers you are breeding to are sound then the bull should work (in theory).
 
Lucky said:
Would be buying open heifers that are ready to breed. I thought everyone studied EPDs to tell if bulls were safe to use on heifers or at least supposedly safe. I did a little research and it shows him to be in the top 5% for BW and CE, I'm definitely not EPD expert so thought I'd ask.
Click to expand...
From the information on the papers - EPD values for calving ease and birth weight tend to indicate heifer safe. Current IBBA database shows top 10 percentile for CE (easy calving) and top 3 percentile for BW (low birth weight). But accuracy for CE is only 21%. Accuracy for BW is only 29%. Those are typical for bulls that do not have lots of records on calving and birth weights on their calves. DNA testing could improve the accuracy to mid 40's.

Validation of the low accuracy numbers depends on individual performance and progeny performance. Appears his birth weight was 67# which was an 81 ratio. Appears his sire has 5 progeny with an average bw of 70.4# with a ratio of 91.3. His dam has only 1 progeny with the 67# bw and 81 ratio. Everything there would indicate lower and below average ratios for bw.

Lots of other good thoughts in the thread. How old and how much will these heifers weigh that you will buy? 800# heifers bred at 15 months "should be" ok. 600# heifers - maybe not.
 
Thanks @simme that's some good info. If we buy heifers they'd be in 750-800# range. We planned on keeping our own this year and may still do that but none really stand out to me. We only need 7 replacements so trying to decide to buy bred cows or buy open heifers. The bred cow market is always really strong here in the winter. We have too many people running 500-2,000 hd herds with buyers at every sale. If you have time to buy them yourself you can buy some but if you get a buyer to get them he's liable to be buying for several people that want the same thing so you end up paying top dollar.
 
I'd put more focus/pay more attention to CE in almost all cases. In terms of BW, some calves end up being crazily tiny. Consider that you might want to try to keep calves at or above a minimum size that you find acceptable. When calves get too small at birth, you can start having other issues, the biggest of these could potentially be survival rate. My point is, don't let EPDs become too much of a good thing by going too far with them. BW does have merit though.
 
@Mark Reynolds We've calved out 15-25 heifers probably 8-10 times now. We've kept heifers in the past but the only time we really kept a group of them and purposely bred them we bought a 4 yr old bull known to throw 50-60# calves. I sold him as soon as we got that group bred. The biggest issue We've run into buying bred heifers was calves being too small. Those calves weighing 35-40 #'s have a hard enough time surviving the birth, the cold, and the predators then you throw a mama in the mix that may or may not know what to do and it's a bad combo. My thinking is that the calving ease bulls have been popular for so long that a big run of 80# calves is just rare, at least in Angus cross black cattle. We'll have several big ones every year and I welcome them on the older cattle but it's not the norm.
 
You bet, negative BW with a +10 CED, wouldnt be scared to use him on heifers at all. Bull is bred pretty well, we have had a lot of 3D bred stock.
 
Lucky said:
@Mark Reynolds We've calved out 15-25 heifers probably 8-10 times now. We've kept heifers in the past but the only time we really kept a group of them and purposely bred them we bought a 4 yr old bull known to throw 50-60# calves. I sold him as soon as we got that group bred. The biggest issue We've run into buying bred heifers was calves being too small. Those calves weighing 35-40 #'s have a hard enough time surviving the birth, the cold, and the predators then you throw a mama in the mix that may or may not know what to do and it's a bad combo. My thinking is that the calving ease bulls have been popular for so long that a big run of 80# calves is just rare, at least in Angus cross black cattle. We'll have several big ones every year and I welcome them on the older cattle but it's not the norm.
Click to expand...
I wonder where @Jeanne - Simme Valley is? I've been to her farm and we discussed these issues some. I appreciated her thoughts. Maybe she can share some of those if she has some time.
 

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