A.I. Bull for commercial cow/calf A.I.

Son of Butch · Mar 8, 2015

For your consideration.
Tear him up all you want, but here is a bull that delivers the top 3 things the vast majority of guys A.I. ing cow/calf herds
want. Connealy Comrade 1385 and he's a pretty good bull with $W 67 putting him in the top 2%

http://www.selectsiresbeef.com/index.ph ... reed=Angus

Son of Butch · Mar 8, 2015

1. He gets them pregnant.
Nothing as frustrating as doing all the work of A.I. and then seeing 'em in heat 21 days later.
2. Unassisted calving
Selling 20 calves beats selling 19 any day of the week.
3. Black calves to sell. :lol:

If you're going to A.I. a commercial cow/calf herd...then why wouldn't he be at the top of your list?

bse · Mar 9, 2015

My question would be more like why would you? Id never use him on mature cows, might use him on hefiers, if $W is all your looking for theres tons of bulls out there better than this bull.
Compare him to this bull Infinity 17083470, in a terminal setting and tell me which may be better. Everybody likes different things.
As for getting them bred lots of things play a part in that, not just the semen.

Dave · Mar 9, 2015

I used Thomas Top Hand two years ago on a group of heifers. He has basically the same calving ease numbers. But his $W, WW, YW, and $B number are all higher. And using TAI I got 70% bred on the first shot. And if you subtract the 10% which didn't breed AI or with the clean up bull for 60 days it comes up to 77.7% bred on the TAI. And the semen for Top Hand cost less than the price listed on the bull you use.
Is the bull you listed decent? yes. Are there better options out there, especially for cows? Heck yes.

Son of Butch · Mar 9, 2015

What caught my eye is Select Sires is promoting him as their top bull for conception.
So if his conception is 2% better than Top Hand you get 1 additional A.I. calf each year per 50 straws purchased.
35 A.I. pregnancies out of 50 straws = 70%
36 A.I. pregnancies out of 50 = 72%

bse · Mar 9, 2015

You bring up a good point on the conception, but how do they arrive at that. In my mind you would have to have the same person breed several hundred head to each bull to know that the conception is better, to many different things there, but maybe not.
Your math is correct, but if you add 25lbs for each of the 35 calves thats 875 extra pounds of calf to be sold, so if you sell at 700lbs thats an extra 175lbs at $2 a pound is $350 just by using a growth bull, plus let the bull clean up the one you missed and youve picked up the other calf.

Dave · Mar 10, 2015

He may have a better conception rate (and I wonder how they came up with that?). But at $25 a straw for him and I paid $18 a straw for Top Hand I saved $350 on the price of semen for 50 head. Does that extra calf have $350 more in value? And if my bull produces more growth, even 10 pounds more per calf, that is more money. Over 35 head that were AI calves that is 350 pounds and at $2 a pound that is $700. Add the $700 in more growth and $350 in savings on semen it is $1,050. We are beginning to get close to the total value of that extra AI calf.