Angus cow bulls

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talltimber

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What would be some of your recommendations on good bulls (contemplating AI as well) to put on my cows to produce some good replacement heifers. I don't know that I will be able to keep any/many for a year or two, but eventually I would like to hold some out of my better cows, and attempt to make those even better. Cows are Angus.

A little background: I am in debt on my cows right now (but right-side up). I'm trying to justify/balance my debt/heifer cost vs calf price in the future/expanding herd. I feel like I am generally having some pretty good calves now, some better than others. If I don't watch, I'm going to have some of my better cows getting some age on them before I get any heifers out of them. Average age is probably around 7.5 yrs old or so, but there are not any younger than 5 and none older than 9.

Any opinions or direction to another place for research of information I can use would be welcomed. I realize opinions are just that, and you have to take into account who/where it's coming from, but if I could get a sufficient amount of opinions I could get some commonly recommended bulls that I could research more myself (epd's, common problems of the bulls that would eliminate them, etc.)

Thanks to gizmom (or blame depending on your opinion of this thread :lol2: ) for planting the seed. I've been thinking about some of the things she shared with me concerning her bulls and her opinion of my current bull, and I don't want there to be a "gap" to my next bull due to ignorance on my part.
I'm considering this an attempt to "educate myself". If I can get to compare some well known replacement heifer/cow bulls to each other maybe some of the epd's will start to become a little more useful to me, although I realize that it won't tell me what I'll actually end up with due to the variable of my cows. Gotta start somewhere.
 
Kind of depends on your location, your management scheme, and your vision of where you want to end up with these cows and the resultant calves.
I've been real pleased with the daughters B/R Destination 928 left here.
Recent conversations with a valued friend who was a long-time Angus breeder, just before he passed away...he strongly recommended Coneally Counselor as a cow-maker who also sires good feet. But, he also recommended trying to find some musty old CRA Bextor semen - they'd used him on some of their cows every year for the past 13 years, and had been very, very pleased with the daughters all along the way.
 
Probably get lots of different answers for cow maker type bulls. I like Right Time as well as anything, they produce well, nice uddered, just sound cattle for me. Also look for that cow family, on the bottom there's usually a good cow making thes bulls.
Angus Hall of Fame has a good book called Angus Legends, that tells the history, and the different lineages.
 
I'm a Charolais guy myself. I love their calves and how they grow. I have been able to compare black Angus to Charolais this last year because we had an Angus bull then went to Charolais so we have a mixture of those 2 breeds of calves right now. The Charolais-Angus crosses that we have right now look great and are growing great and the mommas didn't have any problems having them.

However, if your wanting to get some replacements from your crosses I would get a Hereford bull. That way you will get those Black Baldy calves that will sell great and make great replacements. Then, once you get the replacements you want you can go to a different breed of bull. You have a lot of options to go with having Angus cows in my opinion. Any route you go will be great. Angus cows are great mommas and are great crossed with many different breeds of bulls.
 
I bought a bull as well as a calf that I was going to grow out because I was just using him to clean up everything that didn't stick to AI. He's about thirteen months now and he's not turning out like I'd like, I called a local breeder and I'm going sometime next week to pick out the bull that I want. Perhaps you should look up the breed that you want and more importantly the ranch that has the stock that you like and give them a call.
 
Do not get hung up on AI sires.
However a couple of proven bulls that keep coming up in bloodlines are SAV Final Answer and Sitz Upward
The Thomas cow lines ( Oregon). Conaga cow lines from Nebraska are very good as well.
I would stay away from anything that claims to be carcass oriented as those are for people that feed out there own cattle sometimes on a grid basis.
Ask to many questions to Angus people you are going to get a boat load of complicated answers.
Several commercial cattlemen still like New Design breeding and some old Hoff lines
 
A good route to go in my opinion (some may agree some may not) is to pick out a good registered high dollar bull (AI used or not) that you like and find one of his sons for sell and buy it and use as your bull. We did that with one of our Charolais bulls (son of Mr President) and he is working really well on our Longhorn cows. We run our bulls year round...I don't know if that's what you do or if you pull your bulls or what but its working for us. That way you can still get good bloodlines in your replacements for POSSIBLY a cheaper price if you can find the right bull you want for the right price.
 
Big Cheese":2qd57nup said:
A good route to go in my opinion (some may agree some may not) is to pick out a good registered high dollar bull (AI used or not) that you like and find one of his sons for sell and buy it and use as your bull. We did that with one of our Charolais bulls (son of Mr President) and he is working really well on our Longhorn cows. We run our bulls year round...I don't know if that's what you do or if you pull your bulls or what but its working for us. That way you can still get good bloodlines in your replacements for POSSIBLY a cheaper price if you can find the right bull you want for the right price.
Click to expand...

I did that with Bismarck 5682. We bought a son in March of 2012 and I couldn't be happier with him and his calves. He's every bit the calving ease, low birth weight sire his daddy is. I'm putting him on 22 heifers in May or June and will most likely sell them as bred heifers in November. He's just been a dandy. One vice he has, and it's only happened a few times, is he doesn't like to be cut off from the rest of the herd and will climb or jump any and all fences and gates to get back to his girls. Funny thing though, he never leaves the property.

Oh, and no, we don't use electric fencing. That's a topic for a different thread.
 
Rito 6em3's have been some of my favorites. I've had two home-made bulls out of him and have seen quite a few daughters that were the result of my breeding and they really work here. That's a local perspective and they might not be your kind of cow but I liked what I saw.
 
If I could pick any bull dead or alive to use to make mamma cows it would be:

1. EXT
2. Leachman Right Time
3. Traveler 71
4 Traveler 8180
5. Bon View Bando 598 (I know he is a carrier but he left a lot of great daughters)

There are other bulls out there but my favorite genetic package will have EXT with a splash of Traveler 71 then throw in some 707. This might not be for everyone but I sure like it.

gizmom
 
This is not really a suggestion but more of a question on this subject. I have heard that SAV 004 Predominant was a good cow maker. Just wondering if anyone has experience with his daughters?
 
I have never used the SAV 004 Predominant bull, but looked him up. He sure has a pedigree that says he should be a cow maker, he has EXT, Traveler 8180 and Bando 598 in the pedigree. He also has some AAR New Trend which we have used a lot of. We used Boyd New Day 8005 for years you will find him in most of our pedigrees. The only piece missing in this bull is the 707.

gizmom
 
Dale L":3phdjd9s said:
This is not really a suggestion but more of a question on this subject. I have heard that SAV 004 Predominant was a good cow maker. Just wondering if anyone has experience with his daughters?
Click to expand...

May look at SAV Density as well. He is known for his females. I've always been a fan of the Buschwacker 41-93 cattle as well.
 
Jake,

We used the density bull back when he first came out. I liked his pedigree and was looking for some EXT genetics that I could afford. The only thing I didn't like about his progeny was they lacked muscle in the lower quarter. It could of been a fluke but I didn't use him after that first year. Now he is a hot commodity for sure based on what his calves did at the SAV sale. I don't know how they did as mamma cows none stayed in the herd long enough to find out.

gizmom
 

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