Ai and the use of different breed cover bulls

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hornedfrogbbq

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Realizing that seedstock folks may not look at it that way and this is from a commercial cow/calf point of view: Does anyone AI their herd but put different breed cover bulls on them? That way you retain the AI, first heat, most fertile cows and the later breeders you sell the calves from? That way you are potentially getting hybrid vigor in the calves that sell and potentially more weight gain at the time to sell.

As an example, we have finally gotten our herd fertile enough and large enough and the breeding window small enough where we could retain ONLY the AI heifers to remain in the program and could sell everything else. Obviously it could work with almost any other breed since we are using black angus but depending on the cover bulls (say, charolais bulls) it would also be more obvious on sight which calve was an AI calf versus not.
 
I do this a lot. Most all cows are black angus and black balancer. I do have some whiteface cows, but you can usually tell when the calf is Hereford sired. I ai most everything to black angus bulls. A lot of the cleanup bulls are Hereford. yet to have one of those throw a solid black calf. only keep ai sired heifers. On very rare occasions, I will keep one out of the herd bulls if the cow is one I consider special. routinely turn bulls out the day after ai is finished, that way I don't chance missing the non responders heat. Seems I always have to have at least one of those.
 
Oh yeah. In fact it's not even all that uncommon. I've seen it done in dairies, registered beef herds, commercial beef herds. Most people don't have the guts but if you're full enough that you're picking and choosing who stays and who goes based on space it's a great tool.
 
I think this is good management, every breed has something to offer. I breed red polls and have had breeders use my bulls to increase heat tolerance and milk so their cows can raise a calf stronger and faster. Of course you have to balance it against what you may lose and to me the biggest trick is finding the right bull within the chosen breed.
 

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