Baldie Breeding

[SASKHOUFF]

We have a dozen replacement black baldie heifers that we bred to a black angus heifer bull this year simply because he is extreamly low BW and claving is a breeze with him. But next summer i was concidering shopping around for a black simmi bull to breed to this group.

The heifers are from straight black angus cows bred to horned hereford bulls. A real nice little group of baldie heifers. I would like to retain the baldie look if possible, but i definetly do not want feather necked black calves so breeding back to hereford aint an option.

I like the simmi angus cross heifers too. Thought it would be a good cross to get some simmi on these hereford angus baldies. So whats everyones thoughts and experiences? Breed to a straight black simmi bull or a black blaze faced simmi bull? I know BW and calving ease is an issue with simmi bulls on my style of heifers. But i want that good growth as we calve April 1st on and pull the calves off sometime in October.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lucky_P]

BW and calving ease doesn't have to be any more of an issue with a Simmental bull than with an Angus... or any other breed.
You just have to select one with appropriate calving ease... our current 'heifer' bull is a purebred Simmental... using him over Angus/Shorthorn, Simmental and SimAngus heifers. We chose him specifically for his CED and high WW epds.
Thus far, out of two calf crops, all but one have come small, slender and unassisted; had to pull one big dead one... but that could be due to the Fleckvieh influence behind that heifer; judging by the other calves he's thrown, I can't really point a finger at him on that one.

Going back over these baldies after their first calves... BW/CED should be a minimal concern.

 

[Rafter S]

Welcome to the forum. I have to agree with the last part of what Lucky said (although I didn't disagree with any of it). Calving ease shouldn't be a big concern with mature cows.

 

[SASKHOUFF]

Right. So should be buy a homo blaze face simmi bull or

 

[SASKHOUFF]

BW and calving ease doesn't have to be any more of an issue with a Simmental bull than with an Angus... or any other breed.
You just have to select one with appropriate calving ease... our current 'heifer' bull is a purebred Simmental... using him over Angus/Shorthorn, Simmental and SimAngus heifers. We chose him specifically for his CED and high WW epds.
Thus far, out of two calf crops, all but one have come small, slender and unassisted; had to pull one big dead one... but that could be due to the Fleckvieh influence behind that heifer; judging by the other calves he's thrown, I can't really point a finger at him on that one.

Going back over these baldies after their first calves... BW/CED should be a minimal concern.

Right. So what do you guys do for color? Getting them black baldies back out of a simmi bull and my heifers should we go with a homo blaze faced simmi bull? Or a black simmi bull? I'm worried about there being a chace of too much white on them and them not fitting in on presort sale and taking a bath on the singles.

I really only care about getting some nice baldie replacements out of these heifers one day.

Also whats the bw on your simmi 'heifer' bull? 85ish? Yw is another thing i care about. If i dont like where the market is at in the fall we will keep our calves and background them until they get turned back out on grass ane sold in September.

 

[Brute 23]

It sounds like you are getting way more concerned with looks than quality.

If you want to produce baldies you need to own solid blacks or Herefords. You don't produce baldies by owning baldies.

 

[Rafter S]

I know you said you want baldie replacements from these heifers, but I'd recommend against it. Use them to produce terminal calves, and get more just like them for replacements.

 

[Muddy]

If I were you, I'll just breed these baldies to a Charolais or a terminal Simmental bull. If you want baldy replacements, get some black angus or herefords

 

[SASKHOUFF]

Ya i am concerned with how they look. Black calves are a dime a dozen, unless you can produce the absolute best they sell pretty avg. Dont get me wrong though, its how we got started. With black cows and our entire commercial herd are still straight black cows. Just havent done much with baldie heifers before and until last year we havent done any crossing. Hence why i have a dozen of these girls now after running horned hereford bulls on the black cows. I was more what other guys have done with bladie heifers. I can breed them back to my angus bulls, not my hereford bulls, or buy a simmi bull. Cant breed them char, them smoke calves are really hit and miss. I buy them to feed because they gain good and make good grassers, but at calf sales they are pretty meh. Long and short is, i dont want to just breed them back angus and have some so so calves. Cause then the crossing aint worth it to me. If guys are having success with simmi or whatever, then then the cross is worth it.

 

[Lucky_P]

SASK,
Commercial herd here - only time we've ever bothered weighing a calf was about 3 years back when we were recruited to do a progeny-test breeding trial for a Shorthorn seedstock producer. If it gets here alive and we don't have to touch it to get it here, everything is good.
I'm horrible at estimating weights, but I'd hazard a guess that BWs on these calves are about 75#-80# out of mature cows... smaller out of the heifers.
This bull -and granted, accuracies are low - has CED 14.7, BW -1.1, WW 72, YW 102.9; Mrb 0.38, REA .77, Shr -.31; API 155.9, TI 84.4. Homo black/polled... working well for us; this fall's crop has several calves by Braunvieh, Shorthorn, and Angus AI sires... we'll see how those sired by the walking herdsire stack up against them... but the comparison may still be difficult to make, as most of his calves are out of virgin and re-bred first-calf heifers.

On the baldie/blaze deal... it's hit or miss. have bred blaze-faced SimAngus cows to several baldie/blaze-faced Simmental sires and sometimes you just get a solid black calf.

 

[SASKHOUFF]

Ya it guess gets me nervous to see them big birth weights on them simmi bulls when they are being bred to a small/medium framed cow.

But its worth a try for me. I would have gone the other way and sim/angus cross cows, but them bigger cows in these cold temps eat way more feed than a straight angus cow. I also do realize that it could be hard on these heifers as 2nd calvers. What kind of condition are yours in at weining when them angus cows are have raised a simmi x cross calf all spring and summer?

 

[Supa Dexta]

There's a lot of angus cows nowadays that are bigger than simmis...

 

[Stocker Steve]

Ya it guess gets me nervous to see them big birth weights on them simmi bulls when they are being bred to a small/medium framed cow.

Have not seen a problem with birth weights - - but some Simi bulls have more "power" and the calves are big through the shoulders. Had a Simi feedlot bull like that. Biggest calves were only 80# but too much thickness for heifers, OK for 99% of cows.

 

[Franke]

We had a Lock n Load 3/4 blood bull through calves smaller than our angus heifer bull this year. Plenty of options for lbw simmi bulls. I would use a homo black non blaze face. It keeps them black hided and enough will come out as a baldy.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Get a homo black Simmi with a +10 or above calving ease. Whether he has a blaze face or not, it will still be hit n miss for a blaze face, but as you must know, increases your chances of getting "more" white than you want. Your COWS are carrying the whiting genes for legs, bellie, feet, feathers, etc from the HH. They can pass them on easily to their offspring. Don't pick a "growth" bull (high WW & YW) if you want to keep them smaller mature weight. Large shoulders come from large shoulder genetics. I NEVER breed to a bull that appears to be large shouldered.