Baldy Heifers

[slick4591]

Its easy to find a LBW angus bull. Plus you don't know anything about the hereford cows the heifers are out of . They may all be high bw cows , so play it safe and go angus .

That's easy to find out because the owner of the cows just lives on the other side of the county and is easily accessible. The breeder of the bull is a friend of mine and we probably see each other every couple of weeks. I know someone brought up the sale barn, only these calves came from a private treaty sale. We looked at them about three months ago and Sam closed the deal shortly after that.

Two things I'm getting out of the dialog is low birth weight and keeping them black, which is what I'm going to help him do. If the right GV bull is not available then BA is a real possibility. The last thing I want for my buddy is calving problems.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Seems to me it will be a while before ole Sam needs a bull. Might do him good to get out and see some real live bulls of different breeds before he runs with what folks on here say. Out of the 8 heifers he will be lucky if half make good cows.

 

[Baldie Maker]

Like Ohiosteve the reason I enjoy this site is hearing others opinions and yes learning. If you ever meet someone in the cattle business that says they know it all run! As soon as you think you have it figured out the cows or mother nature will show you that you don't. We are primarily purebred breeders but we do have some commercial cows but we never use anything but angus bulls so hearing the different suggestions on what breed bull to use is very interesting to me. I am surprised no one has suggested a SIMM bull and would like to hear if this could be an option. Most of our commercial cows have SIMM in them and they produce some super calves.

Gizmom

Just to go against the crowd, I'd go SIM-ANGUS. GW Predestined 701T to be exact. Got about ten R413 heifers that will be mated that way this fall.

http://www.accelgen.com/htm/sire_pages/014SM03061.html

 

[slick4591]

Just to go against the crowd, I'd go SIM-ANGUS. GW Predestined 701T to be exact. Got about ten R413 heifers that will be mated that way this fall.

http://www.accelgen.com/htm/sire_pages/014SM03061.html

Thanks for the link. Nice bull and he's something to consider.

 

[3waycross]

Is there such a thing as a LBW Gelbvieh bull for heifers?? And then on real fat heifers, and a inexperinced cattleman, sounds like your looking for problems to me. You can almost guarantee him he won't have any problems with a LBW Angus bull. 3waycross do you really believe he will have less of a chance for problems on heifers with a Gelbviech bull??

Do you own any Gelbvieh, have you ever owned any Gelbvieh? I have 10 straws of a bull in my tank that will throw cocker spaniel puppies with those heifers, and he is a purebred Gelbvieh.

http://www.flyinghgenetics.com/sires/ge ... ack12L.pdf

............and for the record it doesn't matter which bull you use if they are out of high birthweight cattle themselves, you will have problems.

Bottom line is for me anyway. If I owned them and wanted a little more heterosis and good calving ease I would look for a balancer bull with real high calving ease and a negative birthweight. The resulting offspring would be 3/4 British 1/4 Continental.

Here is the kind of EPD's you want to look for in a Balancer....http://bullbarn.com/gelbepd.asp?ID=338

I sold a Balancer bull this year with a -4.1 BW EPD. They are out there.

 

[BRAFORDMAN]

These heifers are nice.

All the bulls stated before would make good choices but these heifers are in Texas, they need brahman influence in their calves.
The calves will suffer without any ear. And most cattlemen in texas would prefer a touch of ear in the calves you sell from these cows. Brangus would be good for producing replacement heifers and the steers would sell well as well.

Beefmaster would be another good choice. My dad had great results with a beefmaster on baldies.
We had few cows from the cross and they raised very nice calves.

A thick beefy lbw brahman bull would work nice. You would get some beefy calves.

 

[tom4018]

Is there such a thing as a LBW Gelbvieh bull for heifers?? And then on real fat heifers, and a inexperinced cattleman, sounds like your looking for problems to me. You can almost guarantee him he won't have any problems with a LBW Angus bull. 3waycross do you really believe he will have less of a chance for problems on heifers with a Gelbviech bull??

Is there such a thing as a guarantee in the cattle business? :lol2:

Personally for a bull choice I would pick a easy calving bull the will throw a calf that will market good. There are several breeds that have calving ease bulls with some good growth. Like 3way said had to market a used bull for more than pound price, so if he is buying pick one that he can use a few years. One thing a old timer told me was "Can't sell a dead one" , so we try to use easy calving bulls with some growth.

 

[salebarn junkie]

If your trying to make money you need to rent a bull or AI you dont have enough cattle to justify buying a bull

 

[slick4591]

Yep, AI's the plan. Looking around now for a clean up bull.

 

[Massey135]

I'm playing catch up on this thread and I know my friend appreciates the compliments. Yes, they are Herf over Angus, and unless folks have been thinking something different, I've been surprised that you would go back either way. I've been trying to learn on this board and that goes against what I thought I learned.Calving ease for sure, but I'm not going to advise him to breed anything younger than 15 months. I'm also going to push him to get pelvic scores, although the old timers around here laugh at that idea.

He and I took a ride today and discussed at length what his plans are and he, being greener than I, just wants babies and big fat check. I'm suggesting black Gelbvieh if I can find something that he likes and will work on heifers (I haven't looked yet). I really appreciate everyone's thoughts on this (except for the uncalled for rudeness). I, too, think they are a fine group of calves and want to do what I am able to do to help the guy. Now if my thinking is screwed up I'd certainly entertain the reasons why. Hey, I'm still learning. :tiphat:

you been reading to many mf135 robotic post

You learned right, Slick. Breeding back to a base breed is leaving big money on the table. I take that as a huge compliment ALA...if I can guide one person away from your backwoods thinking, mission accomplished. These heifers are crossbreds themselves. Wake up! You don't keep replacements out of crossbreds! And if you do, youre disputing the facts of heterosis and denying yourself of profit. Hybrid vigor is maximized at the 3rd cross. Not 4th, not 5th. There's nothing to argue here, just FACT.

And for the love of god, don't EVER use a crossbred bull...even if some scammer has coined a catchy name for em.

 

[Craig]

Just out of curiosity, aside from color, what would be wrong with using a Red Poll bull if the calves are going to be terminal?

 

[ANAZAZI]

Just out of curiosity, aside from color, what would be wrong with using a Red Poll bull if the calves are going to be terminal?

There is nothing much wrong.

 

[Massey135]

...except that the Red Poll is a highly maternal breed whose characteristics are antagonistic to muscle and growth -

 

[TexasBred]

From looking at the location and pastures in the pics of the heifers has anyone considered putting a Longhorn on them? I expect to see the bloom that is on the heifers disappear and that the input costs to maintain these animals to rise thus reducing the anticipated "big check" mentioned. The pasture and heifers plus the herd bulls recommended are IMO not compatible!

Yep great idea. Breed em to a longhorn and get absolutely nothing for your calves.

That's the worst suggestion yet. If yer gonna do that why not go all the way and use a Jersey or better yet a Corriente!

You're getting ahead of yourself buddy...you want to use the Jersey or Corriente on the next generation. :lol2: :lol: :lol2: We have now cut that big fat check by 2/3's.

 

[3waycross]

From looking at the location and pastures in the pics of the heifers has anyone considered putting a Longhorn on them? I expect to see the bloom that is on the heifers disappear and that the input costs to maintain these animals to rise thus reducing the anticipated "big check" mentioned. The pasture and heifers plus the herd bulls recommended are IMO not compatible!

Yep great idea. Breed em to a longhorn and get absolutely nothing for your calves.

That's the worst suggestion yet. If yer gonna do that why not go all the way and use a Jersey or better yet a Corriente!

You're getting ahead of yourself buddy...you want to use the Jersey or Corriente on the next generation. :lol2: :lol: :lol2: We have now cut that big fat check by 2/3's.

I defer to a superior suggestion :tiphat:

 

[R V]

I don't know about superior, but I would say simpler. What is wrong with solid colored longhorns? Spots can kill you, but you want a live calf that is easy on the heifer. I tried Jersey and they calved well, but the gentle bull got really mean as he got older and this kid is learning. A longhorn bull won't cost much nor eat much and he shouldn't much if any when he sales it after breeding the first year. I would go with a fine boned bull for the first calf or two and then muscle and production with later. Personally, I just purchased 3 young Mashona bulls to use on my heifers. The breed is polled, solid black or solid red, very easy calving, heat tolerant with very good carcass data.

It is more important to me to have a cow produce for a longer period of time. 8 live calves at weaning that don't work the heifer as hard so that she can rebreed isn't a bad thing. Each or at least more of the heifers rebreeding is worth more than 6-7 larger calves at weaning or even 8 larger calves at weaning with 1-3 open heifers. My heifers that raise big calves rarely breed back 3 years in a row. I would save the extra heterosis/terminal cross until they are 4-5 years old. He's shouldn't be planning on paying them off with the first calf anyway. We don't have enough grass here (and I don't think he does there) to support the extra production in heifers without supplementing a lot and supplementing that much will probably kill his profits. It sounds like this is a learning experiment and I wish I would kept it simpler when I started. It has taken me a while to realize the value of simplicity.... Success usually breeds success.

 

[SSGenetics]

I don't know about superior, but I would say simpler. What is wrong with solid colored longhorns? Spots can kill you, but you want a live calf that is easy on the heifer. I tried Jersey and they calved well, but the gentle bull got really mean as he got older and this kid is learning. A longhorn bull won't cost much nor eat much and he shouldn't much if any when he sales it after breeding the first year. I would go with a fine boned bull for the first calf or two and then muscle and production with later. Personally, I just purchased 3 young Mashona bulls to use on my heifers. The breed is polled, solid black or solid red, very easy calving, heat tolerant with very good carcass data.

It is more important to me to have a cow produce for a longer period of time. 8 live calves at weaning that don't work the heifer as hard so that she can rebreed isn't a bad thing. Each or at least more of the heifers rebreeding is worth more than 6-7 larger calves at weaning or even 8 larger calves at weaning with 1-3 open heifers. My heifers that raise big calves rarely breed back 3 years in a row. I would save the extra heterosis/terminal cross until they are 4-5 years old. He's shouldn't be planning on paying them off with the first calf anyway. We don't have enough grass here (and I don't think he does there) to support the extra production in heifers without supplementing a lot and supplementing that much will probably kill his profits. It sounds like this is a learning experiment and I wish I would kept it simpler when I started. It has taken me a while to realize the value of simplicity.... Success usually breeds success.

:???:

 

[ANAZAZI]

...except that the Red Poll is a highly maternal breed whose characteristics are antagonistic to muscle and growth -

And also associated with birth ease. Red Poll cattle are no less growthy or muscular than the breeds in a baldie, basically the same stuff.

 

[Massey135]

...except that the Red Poll is a highly maternal breed whose characteristics are antagonistic to muscle and growth -

And also associated with birth ease. Red Poll cattle are no less growthy or muscular than the breeds in a baldie, basically the same stuff.

If you're speaking in generalities, they are considerable less growthy. I didn't realize Angus nor hereford were derived from dairy stock???

 

[redcowsrule33]

Yep, AI's the plan. Looking around now for a clean up bull.

Why bother on 8 heifers? If you synch the heifers and do a decent job with heat detection for repeats, any heifer that doesn't get bred by the second breeding should get culled anyway. With limited pasture and resources I wouldn't want to waste my money and feed on a bull this year.