Nice post
wewild
Now to the original question: A lot of what we do as an industry needs to be 'relooked' with a business perspective. your question needs to be phrased more properly as "which bull is the BEST for MY particular herd" and then define what you mean by best. While I agree with wewild's choice now (simply because a limi cross will work best for my herd RIGHT NOW) the other's in here may or may not have valid reasons for their bull choices. Some will get a certain bull because it's worked for them in the past, eliminate others because of past performance (Limi's were kind of nutty a long time ago -- but look how far others like Santa Gertrudis et al have come in terms of handling ability and being docile).
So ... what market are you selling your calves to? What do your buyers want to see in your calves? where are your cows developmentally? how much do you want to invest in a bull or bulls in time, dollars, management, etc.?
Each decision needs to be made on currrent and future criteria, not necessarily on the way it's always been done. So to find the BEST bull for you right now, try this:
-Define what you mean by BEST (birth weights, weaning weights, other criteria);
-set some eliminating criteria (price, percentage of breed(s), ear/no ear); get facts that relate to your decision;
-make assumptions for critical things that you can't find the facts on (you can add those in later if you find them);
-then make a set of criteria to evaluate the options (color, hardiness, BW, WW or those other dollar factors, etc) ;
- do a comparison of all options as to how they rate compared to each other according to YOUR criteria; Add in what your gut says to do also
What you might find out is that a bull that you liked won't give you as good of a return as one that you hadn't considered given all the things that you really want it to do. A business-like decision methodology will help drive you to a business-like decision that's a little more objective with some room for subjective input. But it will drive you to decide if you want to make money or have pretty cows.
Yup, a lot more work than just going with what the neighbors use or buying what is sold the hardest in our publications. And a lot of stuff from a guy who's only been in the business for a little over a year.
Polledbull hit the nail on the head about chasing black cows. Look at what the Appaloosa folks did chasing that color: got a bunch of neat colored dumb as rocks horses -- yeah,yeah, some are really good. But you can follow the goods ones through blood lines that didn't use color as the primary criteria for breeding. And maybe everybody here has the right bull for
their herd. That don't make it right for yours. Each has some benefit and costs associated with it (eared cattle sometimes get docked at the sale, but provide good disease resistance in some areas of the country, etc). What you need to decide is which costs you can handle and which benefits you need to best suit your bottom line.