Best Simmental or Angus bulls for the fescue belt

[Lucky_P]

Shorthorn Assn. has recently come out with a genomic $Fescue index. Don't know what markers were identified, but suspect that they'd be similar or the same across breeds...

http://www.hpj.com/livestock/shorthorn- ... a2924.html

 

[talltimber]

This is also a subject that I have been watching and working with for years. My best luck with Angus has been an elderly farmer in Arkansas. His cattle are mostly Emulous and linebred. I don't have any experience with Simmental that work here. I have tried a couple from Iowa, but with no luck. Other cattle that work here are Danny Miller's Herefords, the Mashonas and it seems like most of the more moderate Charolais cattle have worked here. I would like to purchase a few older Charolais cows that work on fescue as I am down to one older cow and one older bull and their sons.
Ron

Ron,

I am sure you know this. Southwest Missouri has the highest endophyte toxicity level tests recorded in the Nation. You have a challenge. Fire Sweep Simmental is in SW Missouri. They seem to weather the high toxicity fairly well.

Link for this, please.

 

[R V]

What would you all call good results for a cow/calf that is raised on fescue?
Would it be a calf that weighs 450-550 at 7 months? 8 months?

If raised on a combination of fescue, orchard and clover does that change things?

#1 is calving interval +/- 365 days. Has a link to hair, skin, ability to utilize fescue. Scientist say that the largest concentration of endophytes is in the seed heads and our cows and sheep make a rotation grazing dry seed heads. I sometimes chuckle.

The bought solution and most promoted option is to replace durable fescue with high cost and less durable replacements with no guarantee that original K31 will not return as survival of the fittest. Selection for proper animals is much cheaper for the individual and easier to enjoy. Because seedstock operations spend 99% of efforts chasing terminal traits they see fescue resistance as useless. Thus back to the true comment that many feed as grains are great diluters of fescue. But expensive - passed on with high dollar sales to the buyer.

Dilution helps. Proper minerals help. Cheap minerals are a waste of money.

Once you get to the point of cows walking on tips of hooves, losing tails, hiding all day in the shade or panting in the sun and such you have let it go too far. They would not breed for love nor money. Who needs a woolly mammoth on the farm anyway?

Tell me what % mature weight of cow you want to wean? Hard to do the famed 50%+ on real world cows and minimal inputs on fescue unless you go to small frame cattle that will lose you more money in the barn than you can make. Many who "cure" the problem move cows to fall calving to get past most spring and summer fescue effects. What you want to find is herds doing spring calving in a short window with CI of 365+/- for a cumulative history on the cows. Split season calving is generally a byproduct of cows that cannot breed in the spring or are late calvers which shift to the fall and breed better. Watch out on that one.

This is a really good question getting some sorry replies. Don't be discouraged by those that specialize in pot shots. I know what works but probably not much help to you as we linebreed and use home raised animals and unpopular bulls. And I have no idea what you want or accept in cattle type and size. Very few folks know what to recommend from AI catalogs as the catalogs are not focused on helping with the problem. Even when a herd prefix is mentioned, you had better know which will and which will not work from their program.

Good post and like Ebenezer, the cattle that I have that work currently are not modern lines and most would laugh at the EPD's. Even though their EPD's are dramatically less, they usually raise significantly heavier calves than the cows that I did have with much better EPD's.

An Angus bull that apparently worked well was Traveler 23-4, but you had to watch the dispositions and apparently structural traits. I don't know any of the modern lines that work, but would like to learn of some other bulls that work. I prefer bulls that have been out at least 10 years so that it is easier to find out their pro's and con's. There also appear to be EPD corrections in this time frame as the bulls get more proven. Personally, I have had the best luck with very experienced cattlemen and their cattle. They usually know the older cattle that worked and what to work around with those cattle. Another note, Bonsma's desired phenotype appears to work quite well on fescue.

Ron

 

[Tbrake]

We are 90% fescue here. Almost all is highly toxic, besides a few owned farms that are endophyte free variety's. With proper managment you can help control it pretty well.
Seed head suppression chemicals have made a big impact here. I am spraying 1000 acres next week weather depending. Using chemical called "plotter" it is generic "Escort". About 4$ an acre and controls broad leaf.
Also feed a mineral that is supposed to help with toxicity

 

[Bright Raven]

This is also a subject that I have been watching and working with for years. My best luck with Angus has been an elderly farmer in Arkansas. His cattle are mostly Emulous and linebred. I don't have any experience with Simmental that work here. I have tried a couple from Iowa, but with no luck. Other cattle that work here are Danny Miller's Herefords, the Mashonas and it seems like most of the more moderate Charolais cattle have worked here. I would like to purchase a few older Charolais cows that work on fescue as I am down to one older cow and one older bull and their sons.
Ron

Ron,

I am sure you know this. Southwest Missouri has the highest endophyte toxicity level tests recorded in the Nation. You have a challenge. Fire Sweep Simmental is in SW Missouri. They seem to weather the high toxicity fairly well.

Link for this, please.

Fire Sweep has that information. I will ask her to post it. Sorry, I missed this.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

This is also a subject that I have been watching and working with for years. My best luck with Angus has been an elderly farmer in Arkansas. His cattle are mostly Emulous and linebred. I don't have any experience with Simmental that work here. I have tried a couple from Iowa, but with no luck. Other cattle that work here are Danny Miller's Herefords, the Mashonas and it seems like most of the more moderate Charolais cattle have worked here. I would like to purchase a few older Charolais cows that work on fescue as I am down to one older cow and one older bull and their sons.
Ron

Ron,

I am sure you know this. Southwest Missouri has the highest endophyte toxicity level tests recorded in the Nation. You have a challenge. Fire Sweep Simmental is in SW Missouri. They seem to weather the high toxicity fairly well.

Link for this, please.

I talked with Tim Schnakenberg this morning (he is the agronomy specialist for our area). The study in not published yet, but should be in the next few weeks. Here is what he could tell me;
Fescue is measured in Total Ergot Alkoloids. A range of 2000 to 3000 PPB (parts per billion) is considered "moderate". Lawrence County (the county I live in, and the SW Center is located in) averaged 4238 PPB. The SW Research center, just miles from my farm, averaged 6200 PPM, with most samples above 7000 PPM and the highest sample at 10,167 PPM.
Sorry this image is hard to see. If anyone wants to direct message me an email address, I can send the original document (it is a PDF, and I can not upload a PDF here).
I hope that helps clarify some.

 

[talltimber]

Thank you. I am curious what our level could be expected to be here. I was hoping for a general zone layout like what appears to be shown on the US map. It seems to be pretty intense here at times.