Behm 100W Cuda 504C vs KT Small Town Kid 5051 vs. NJW Long Haul 36E ET - to make baldies

[ita47]

I'm new around here but I've been raising cattle for 25 years. I have a few Gelbvieh and Balancer females I have been considering AI'ing to a Hereford bull to get some baldies. I would like to know if anyone has any experience with the bulls listed? I have been trying to decide which bull I want to try, I like Cuda's EPD's but his picture in the catalog doesn't do much for me and I haven't found many pictures of offspring either. Long Haul has good numbers as well, and his picture looks better than Cuda but I don't know what his calves look like, and Small Town Kid is probably the best looking of the 3 and the cleanest fronted, and still pretty decent Epd's but again I don't know what his calves look like. I do prefer a polled bull, I realize 2 of these are hetero polled. I would love some feedback before I purchase the semen.

 

[Larzbarz]

Small Town Kid has been identified as a carrier of MD. Might want to look into that via the link below.
https://hereford.org/member-services/herd-management-tools/genetic-abn/

We've got a few Cuda heifer calves out of commercial Hereford cows. I posted some pictures and so did some other folks in a previous thread. I've been meaning to get some new pics of them. Maybe next week.
https://www.cattletoday.com/threads/hereford-ai-sires.122723/#post-1631672

 

[ita47]

Larzbarz,
Thanks for the response. I will probably steer clear of Small Town Kid because of him being a carrier, he also seems to have more hair and that concerns me here in fescue county. I need my cattle to shed off well. I like the look of your Cuda calves, and would love to see some current pictures if you get time. I think I have decided to go with Cuda and see how he works out for me. He has really good numbers and he is homozygous polled.

 

[Larzbarz]

I just put up a few new pics on that other thread.

And welcome to the boards!

 

[ita47]

Anyone else that has used Cuda or Long Haul please share your thoughts and calf pictures.

 

[SPH]

We've used both Small Town Kid and Cuda. First off like LarzBarz said STK unfortunately came back as a carrier of MD after the defect was announced this spring by AHA. Really disappointed when we found that out because the the calves we have had sired by him have been great - lots of muscle, good bone and structure and I think he adds a little extra hip as well compared to other calves we have. If you are just breeding for terminal cattle he would probably be fine but if you planed to keep any daughters or sons then comes the problem with the defect carrier status as you don't want to possibly introduce that into your herd - especially if you don't DNA test for it. We won't be using him anymore, just took DNA samples on the 2 bull calves we are considering to keep over for our sale pen and crossing our fingers they come back free of MD. Kept 1 heifer sired by him last year that we will likely DNA test once we see what kind of cow she is next year. When it comes to defects purebred breeders need to stay informed and be diligent in testing for them especially once you find out a bloodline you used in the past now may have a potential carrier. Identify if you have any carriers and make proper management decisions based off the results. We already had to extensively test our herd the other year after it turned out that 936 bull was a MSUD carrier and our former herd bull unfortunately came back as a carrier so we tested all his daughters we had kept and just 1 was a carrier and the 2 direct 936 daughters we had were not carriers so we dodged a bullet on that defect as it seemed like a lot of breeders were getting about 50% of results back that were carriers from what I heard.

As far as Cuda goes we got our 1st calves sired by him this year and all 4 were heifers, would of liked to had at least 1 bull out of him just for comparison. Like the looks of them so far, very well made and growthy. Used him again this year and probably will probably use him again next year too. Don't know much about the longhaul bull as he's just a 3 year old so probably not a ton of calves out there sired by him yet.