Calving 2026

Ky hills said:

A very polarizing Angus bull. Known for siring good maternal qualities in his descendants but also some very crazy descendants.

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Ha... Thought it was an acronym. Thanks.

GoWyo said:

I like to see EXT a couple generations back. Interesting thing is Leachman Right Time, a son of EXT was a pretty docile bull and his progeny seem to be the same.

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I’ve had some with EXT back in the pedigree and they’ve been ok disposition wise.
If it’s a good individual with good temper than I don’t mind the EXT in the background either.
I’ll name some more because at this point everybody involved with Angus already knows anyway, I don’t want anything with Objective, Traveler 004, or Absolute close up in the pedigree.
I’ve seen way too many Objective and 004 sons and daughters come in sale rings at registered sale and be way to fast and snotty for my liking. I acknowledge 004 is known for good daughters, but I like ones I can get around if needed.
I’ve had a Final Answer daughter that was a big 1800+# cow, she herself was fine unless with a young calf, or hemmed up in a working facility, then she’d get hot fast. Her calves were fast and crazy. I had another Final Answer daughter out of a Net Worth daughter. I took a chance on her because I bought her reasonably well, and she was young. She was surprisingly very calm and her calves were calm too.
I had a couple AI calves from the Absolute Bull because I really liked Final Answer for a while. Had a real. Ice TC Franklin daughter from the Evergreen cow family that was really good and calm. She had a real nice bull calf by Absolute and I had early on planned to retain him for my own herd use, He was initially calm and from out of nowhere one day he could act like he would be a pet and let reach out to him, then the next day he’d be subject to see you from 200 ft away and tear through a fence. He went under a gate in our alley and took it off the hinges. First time that had happened. Her other calves after that one were fine. I think there are several components to disposition, genetic, from one or both the sire and dam. The dam can pass in her wariness, flightiness, or aggression to her calf from the calf learning from her. They can also be influenced by their environment and the handling practices of people too.
I try to look at an individual animal’s actions and reactions, and then if there’s enough of a pattern genetic wise then if they are acting up it’s enough for me to pass on them.

Travlr said:

Ha... Thought it was an acronym. Thanks.

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Could be EXT (Extremely Xtreme Temper)

We have an Absolute daughter that is 10 years old and has been a fantastic cow and her calves have been pretty mellow even bred to Resilient. Maybe we got lucky. Have an Absolute granddaughter that has never been aggressive, but isn't as friendly as my other cows. I have several Resilient daughters and they have been good cows, but will get a little protective of their newborns, which is fine. They mellow after a couple days. Despite Resilient's docility EPD, I have not had any problems with them and they are usually the first ones to gentle down after weaning. Maybe they're just intelligent and respond to handling whether the handling is good or bad.

GoWyo said:

We have an Absolute daughter that is 10 years old and has been a fantastic cow and her calves have been pretty mellow even bred to Resilient. Maybe we got lucky. Have an Absolute granddaughter that has never been aggressive, but isn't as friendly as my other cows. I have several Resilient daughters and they have been good cows, but will get a little protective of their newborns, which is fine. They mellow after a couple days. Despite Resilient's docility EPD, I have not had any problems with them and they are usually the first ones to gentle down after weaning. Maybe they're just intelligent and respond to handling whether the handling is good or bad.

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My current Angus bull is close to the bottom for disposition, I don’t pay much attention to EPD’s on young or low accuracy animals, He’s 3 years old and was a little flighty when we brought him in. Got him from friends that are fairly new to cattle. He has settled down quite a bit and is fairly well manageable,
I don’t know if his disposition was genetic as per the EPD or if it was prior management style or a combination of both.
He has a very high EN EPD which admittedly does seem to be accurate as he is not as food motivated to follow a bucket like a lot of my bulls have been.
He’s content some days to stay out grazing instead of coming to feed with the cows, but most times he does follow along with them.

Ky hills said:

I don’t know know if true or not, but from what I’ve heard the early importations of Limousin bulls and semen from France was not the picks of the litter from a disposition standpoint.
I don’t know anything about Limousin pedigrees,
I do know some about Angus pedigrees from some years ago and can say there are definitely some individual bulls that I absolutely don’t want to see in a pedigree just because of disposition issues.

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Have heard horror stories of old french lims too. They didn't sell good animals to the other european countries as well.

Today's arrival. Last year had bought semen from two irish companies for the first time, so here is the first calf by one of the charolais bulls I chose.

Of course, chose the worst day to calve with low temps and rain.
Heifer calf, 282 days gestation, overall not big calf, even if her sire's numbers showed him being on a harder calved side. Dam is 9years old, had calf on the 30th of May last year, so she did a huge jump back in calving time. And cow only had one bull calf in her lifetime.
The sire of the calf:
https://www.doveagenetics.ie/sires/suckler-beef-sires/CH8971
Three more calves are due by him this month. So far looks promising.

lithuanian farmer said:

Today's arrival. Last year had bought semen from two irish companies for the first time, so here is the first calf by one of the charolais bulls I chose.
View attachment 67064
Of course, chose the worst day to calve with low temps and rain.
Heifer calf, 282 days gestation, overall not big calf, even if her sire's numbers showed him being on a harder calved side. Dam is 9years old, had calf on the 30th of May last year, so she did a huge jump back in calving time. And cow only had one bull calf in her lifetime.
The sire of the calf:
https://www.doveagenetics.ie/sires/suckler-beef-sires/CH8971
Three more calves are due by him this month. So far looks promising.

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I can't believe how much mud you have. It must rain there all the time.

92lbs. Weighed with empty belly.

Travlr said:

I can't believe how much mud you have. It must rain there all the time.

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Only two days with rain. Had no rain since the warmth hit at the beggining of March. Sunny again starting tomorrow.

Same sire of the calf. Same AI date. 283 days gestation for this one, bull calf, out of parthx heifer.

Similar size as his half sister.

94,8lbs at three days age. Perfect for a heifer and very good for a charolais calf.

A calf, which should have been of different gender and different colour. Not sure how it happened and if it was my mistake, or the straw I used had the contents of another bull, but not the one, which was written on the straw. Should have been a female sexed belgian blue. Looks more like a limx and a bull calf... Born at 278 days. Small lively calf. How he is what he is, is a mystery to me as it's not easy to mistake a sexed straw for conventional and I had only one left... Well, at least have an alive calf on the ground.

lithuanian farmer said:

A calf, which should have been of different gender and different colour. Not sure how it happened and if it was my mistake, or the straw I used had the contents of another bull, but not the one, which was written on the straw. Should have been a female sexed belgian blue. Looks more like a limx and a bull calf... Born at 278 days. Small lively calf. How he is what he is, is a mystery to me as it's not easy to mistake a sexed straw for conventional and I had only one left... Well, at least have an alive calf on the ground.
View attachment 67209

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With a face like that and a dam of that color I'd suspect Hereford or Simmental. But maybe that cow has the whiteface gene and she's so pale it's hard to see, so Lim would be pretty possible.

Do you ever use Hereford semen?

Travlr said:

With a face like that and a dam of that color I'd suspect Hereford or Simmental. But maybe that cow has the whiteface gene and she's so pale it's hard to see, so Lim would be pretty possible.

Do you ever use Hereford semen?

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Yup, cow has white markings on her face. She is charolais sired out of limxherefordx dairy. All previous lims from her were solid red.

Used to have two hereford x dairy cows, but haven't used much of herefords then and none now.
Cow's dam:

Simmentals never gave us much of colour. Mostly just white blaze. Even sim sired heifer out of the same limxherx cow has only white blaze and not a single white hair elsewhere. Gonna have first 87% sim calf in a month, so hopefully abit more white colour.

Yesterday's arrival. 75% bazadaise bull calf at 293 days. Third calving for the cow, the same bull used all three times, all unassisted deliveries.

75% parthenaise bull calf, born at 295 days gestation, currently 5 days old.

New calf by the new bull. Charolais sired heifer born at 274 days.


Sire:
https://www.doveagenetics.ie/sires/suckler-beef-sires/CH4158

Hopefully no surprise twin as gestation lenght is very odd

This Spring is full of surprises. Bought some yearling F1Brafords last July and bred them to our Angus Bulls in November to calve Fall '26 but about 25% have been calving since late March so some were apparently bred. Lost one and the survivors are tiny. This little one in the first pic couldn't be more than 35 lbs. She lucked out. Mom left her but the heifer that lost a calf promptly adopted her.

Tailwinds Land & Cattle said:

This Spring is full of surprises. Bought some yearling F1Brafords last July and bred them to our Angus Bulls in November to calve Fall '26 but about 25% have been calving since late March so some were apparently bred. Lost one and the survivors are tiny. This little one in the first pic couldn't be more than 35 lbs. She lucked out. Mom left her but the heifer that lost a calf promptly adopted her.

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Good when heifers are that smart!