Best Terminal Breed

[Massey135]

Well Alabama i am a trying to learn it all, so far most of my learning about cows has been by spending alot of time around cattle. All these book learned folks make me a little spooky.

My formal education is in Finance. So far, most of my "learning" about cows has been by spending a lot of time around cattle.

 

[agmantoo]

The crux lies with small efficient cows for your environment bred to a terminal bull and sell ALL of the offspring. The terminal calf won't be as fat as a less growthy calf out of your cows, but that is exactly what the buyers want, a big growthy green calf and they are usually prepared to pay a premium for that. Add to that the extra lbs weaned and I cannot see why you won't make a decent return per acre.

But in essence I agree, its not for everyone or for all situations, I don't even do it myself.

I have to acknowledge that you nailed the situation dead on. I sent feeder calves to market and attended a portion of the sale this afternoon. ~1140 head in total of all weight classes and most cattle types were sold. I did not arrive at the sale in time to see all of the individual animals sold including mine. I did see some lighter individual feeder calves (3 weights) and the highest price I observed was $2.02 per lb. My small lot weighing 420 each that was grouped brought $1.99/lb. Fatter terminal calves weighing in the same weight range brought approximately $1.53 to $1.61 /lb.

 

[Stocker Steve]

100lbs is a bit much for the comparison but I get your drift. With a crossbred like a balancer or Limflex, the resulting calves may be 1/4 cont by blood but without stabalized genetics your gonna get calves that show from 1/2 to no continental influence and everything in between. Work with stabalized genetics IN GENERAL and I guarantee you'll be much happier.

I can and do AI to get similiar calves from a put together herd. Similiar not stabalized. Then I sell the growthy cut in the winter and take the rest to grass. So I sell 2 groups of steers and 2 groups of heifers in order to get 3 way cross calves with 25% continental blood. Seems like a good value for my system.

 

[Massey135]

Best bet is to use one of the breeds that has a stabalized continental %. And while technically that may be a "3 breed cross" - it doesn't have anywhere near the vigor of the traditional f1 x bull of 3rd breed "3 way cross.". If I had a put together herd, I would identify a breed that's not in the makeup of my cows, and use that breed as my bull.

 

[TexasBred]

Best bet is to use one of the breeds that has a stabalized continental %. And while technically that may be a "3 breed cross" - it doesn't have anywhere near the vigor of the traditional f1 x bull of 3rd breed "3 way cross.". If I had a put together herd, I would identify a breed that's not in the makeup of my cows, and use that breed as my bull.

Like these?

http://www.cattlerange.com/202C513-201/202C513-201.html

 

[Massey135]

Nope, those would be some purebred heifers I sold - I wasn't a fan of those hard doing genetics - Although that bull I bred them to is dyn-no-mite.

and my Char bull M786658 http://search.charolaisusa.com/anischlist.aspx

and my Gelbvieh AMGV1115744 http://search.gelbvieh.org/default.aspx

What a coincidence- they all have the same owner name? Heck of a bs artist to be able to make that happen???

 

[Eugene66]

I'm partial to Blonde Bulls or Blonde x Angus (red or black) Bulls breeding 3/4 ths to 7/8 ths Angus (red or black) x 1/8 th or 1/4 Brahman Cows. We run 500 of these cows in NE Texas with only one percent calving problems, whether they be heifers or cows. We run our Bulls year-around with Cows on ten different land tracts - so, needless to say - we don't baby sit our cows or heifers. Blondes are muscular; however, they are not double muscled. Feedlots prefer feeders that are growthy, convert feed well, yield well, marble/grade mostly Choice, and hang around 850 pounds. This cross works well for terminal cattle.

 

[Cucumber35]

I'll be the oddball and vote Piedmontese mostly because I'm partial as that's what we run on Red Angus. Although most now are crossbred cows, so I'll argue the not retaining heifers mindset as well but only to the point that yes, too much Pied influence doesn't make a good cow. I've never seen any dockage at the sale, actually we usually are on the upper side. However most are sold private to a local butcher that likes the apple butts that were mentioned. So maybe not your 'typical' market but works well for us at the moment.

 

[ANAZAZI]

Blonde d'Acuitaine, or Limousine works for basically anyone. Piedmontese can do good here and there.