Big Boy Jr.

[MikeBo]

That's a pretty good set of calves, I would be happy with them! They look healthy, and I would guess the coloration is a shorthorn influence?

 

[cowgirl8]

That's a pretty good set of calves, I would be happy with them! They look healthy, and I would guess the coloration is a shorthorn influence?

Thanks, this was over a month ago and these calves are really getting big......I dont believe we've ever had a shorthorn. The color is from sim.

 

[cowgirl8]

Big Boy at work today...24 months old and has never seen a bucket of feed. Weaned and thrown out in the bull pasture and given medium quality hay. Bred this herd at one. He's standing by a big sim cow, his girlfriend for the day. He'll probably be as big as his daddy next year, still nowhere close. Big Boy was a big boy.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Cowgirl, it looks like he has done well!

 

[cowgirl8]

Thank you..

 

[piedmontese]

That Sim cow he's standing by sure looks Holstein to me. Which would explain all the odd coloring.

 

[chippie]

I agree with TexasBred's first post. I am happy that you like him, but he is too unbalanced and light through the hindquarters for me.
I prefer a bull who has a big long shoulder to have a big long hip with muscle to match.

 

[cowgirl8]

That Sim cow he's standing by sure looks Holstein to me. Which would explain all the odd coloring.

We get holsteiny looking sims. Guarantee she's not holstein. Sometimes mixtures of sim and angus comes out this way. We had a steer we held back last year because he was colored the same and figured someone would think the same, so we planned to eat him. Ended up taking him anyway and i guess buyers are sharper than we think because he brought what a angus/sim should.
I really dont care what a bull looks like finished out. What i care about is what his calves do between the ages of 0 to 9 months. We look for a medium birth weight of around 80 pounds and lots of gain in 9 months. And having that sim/angus look helps. We will know this year if his calves fit the bill and i'll have to say a big fat YES they do. He may even pass his father on gain. I know that i want to keep every heifer out of this bull, they are outstanding. I can see his daughters bred to our other simbra-ish bull, put a little tiger strip on that generation will get me cows that i love...

 

[cowgirl8]

And, since we dont castrate until around 5ish months, we get this this time of year. If you castrate early, in the first month you dont get this. Calves start showing bull behavior at about 3 months. They start looking and acting bully at this time except for aggression, but they will follow cows along with the bulls. If you wait to castrate you get a little extra growth out of your calves. This stops once they are banded. We band about a month before we sell.

 

[cowgirl8]

We do buy LBW angus for our heifers, this guy was eager to get to work. Heifers just wanted the grass. Going to have 51 bred heifers in a couple months, very tempting to sell them all at what people are willing to pay for a bred heifer.

 

[inyati13]

I agree with TexasBred's first post. I am happy that you like him, but he is too unbalanced and light through the hindquarters for me.
I prefer a bull who has a big long shoulder to have a big long hip with muscle to match.

I am not a judge of cattle. I often ask the people I buy most of my cattle from to give me their recommendations. However, I can see those characteristics that chippie pointed out and I don't think she is wrong.

I was thinking about why people put up picutres. I put up more pictures than most. I do it because I think they are cute or interesting. I love calf pictures. I don't put up a picture to get technical evalutaion. My pictures are to show off the cattle I love and the place I spend my time. Sometimes I put up pictures of my facility or things I am doing like the pictures of the vet trimming my cow's feet.

But it does not bother me in the least to have someone give a critical comment. I can ignore it or I can study it and confirm that someone has raised an issue that I might need to do something about.

 

[cowgirl8]

Dough Boy is helping out BIg Boy this year. He's just a year old, but i bet he'll get a few calves mixed in. He's out of a black brangus/sim cow and out of our simbraish bull. Not sure why he came out light red, but most of his calves should be black. We'll see, he sure beat our expectations on gain and thats what we like. He's out of a line of very productive cows that live off air. Waiting for all that fuzzy hair to fall out to see what we have under all that fluff..He was treated like all our homegrown bulls, weaned and thrown out with the older bulls. Never saw a bucket of feed and grew on medium quality hay only. We've paid a lot of money for a fat fluffy registered bull for him to show us what he really looked like under all that fat the breeder put on him when he was put out without all that feed. I want to see what that bull has naturally, not fat. But, if that bull can pack on the pounds on pasture, thats what we look for.

 

[cowgirl8]

I agree with TexasBred's first post. I am happy that you like him, but he is too unbalanced and light through the hindquarters for me.
I prefer a bull who has a big long shoulder to have a big long hip with muscle to match.

I am not a judge of cattle. I often ask the people I buy most of my cattle from to give me their recommendations. However, I can see those characteristics that chippie pointed out and I don't think she is wrong.

I was thinking about why people put up picutres. I put up more pictures than most. I do it because I think they are cute or interesting. I love calf pictures. I don't put up a picture to get technical evalutaion. My pictures are to show off the cattle I love and the place I spend my time. Sometimes I put up pictures of my facility or things I am doing like the pictures of the vet trimming my cow's feet.

But it does not bother me in the least to have someone give a critical comment. I can ignore it or I can study it and confirm that someone has raised an issue that I might need to do something about.

I pretty much know that anything i post is going to get many negative comments. I know the bull isnt perfect, but it is what it is....We like him and thats all that matters.

 

[chippie]

We do buy LBW angus for our heifers, this guy was eager to get to work. Heifers just wanted the grass. Going to have 51 bred heifers in a couple months, very tempting to sell them all at what people are willing to pay for a bred heifer.

Yes, it is your nickle being spent on your cattle. However looking at things with rose colored glasses will not improve your herd and for me that is my goal. Bragging about no feed is fine, but an animal needs to be a very good individual itself or you will be setting yourself back. There has been many a photo of a fine bull in his working clothes posted here. They may be a bit lean, but they are packing the meat and are structurally correct.

Have you ever heard of an animal having cat hams? Your Angus bull has them. It doesn't matter that he is out on grass and not being fed. Muscling is genetic. A calf is born with with good muscling or it is not. Any females that you keep out of him may or may not look like him when mature, and chances are with the bulls that you have shown, you will end up with cat hammed calves.

TX A&M Animal Science Department has very good free publications concerning Beef Cattle.

http://animalscience.tamu.edu/academics/beef/publications/

This one is Commercial Bull Selection made EZ

http://animalscience.tamu.edu/files/2012/04/genetics-commercial-bull.pdf

You mentioned that you get a lot of negative comments. I have learned quite a bit over the years from the folks here. Very often others will see something that the original poster will not. Being able to look at your livestock with fresh eyes can be educational. Good luck with your breeding program.

 

[cowgirl8]

I hesitated in showing our bulls because, being a photographer, its very hard to get a picture that records an image that shows the true bull.(i was warned by PMs of people you guys picked apart) Most here know that, the reason they dont post pictures. If the picture shows this bull has cat hams, its an optical illusion. There is nothing wrong with this bull, but you are sure allowed your opinion.
Then again, maybe i can only dream of owning a herd of perfect cows and bulls like you guys. I'll hang around so that i can learn just how to do that..lol I know you guys dont like this, but i'm pretty confident that we do just find in bull selection because our % prove it.

 

[TexasBred]

I hesitated in showing our bulls because, being a photographer, its very hard to get a picture that records an image that shows the true bull.(i was warned by PMs of people you guys picked apart) Most here know that, the reason they dont post pictures. If the picture shows this bull has cat hams, its an optical illusion. There is nothing wrong with this bull, but you are sure allowed your opinion.
Then again, maybe i can only dream of owning a herd of perfect cows and bulls like you guys. I'll hang around so that i can learn just how to do that..lol I know you guys dont like this, but i'm pretty confident that we do just find in bull selection because our % prove it.

You're "pretty confident" that you are always right in all things. You can be really ostentatious for someone who seems to operate by the seat of your britches. I'm still looking for the "program and the plan". But it's not there. :roll:

 

[piedmontese]

Holsteiny looking sims? Never heard of that. I actually have several sim/angus and they look all beef. That cow looks at least 3/4 dairy. No way she don't have Holstein n her.

 

[3waycross]

I hesitated in showing our bulls because, being a photographer, its very hard to get a picture that records an image that shows the true bull.(i was warned by PMs of people you guys picked apart) Most here know that, the reason they dont post pictures. If the picture shows this bull has cat hams, its an optical illusion. There is nothing wrong with this bull, but you are sure allowed your opinion.
Then again, maybe i can only dream of owning a herd of perfect cows and bulls like you guys. I'll hang around so that i can learn just how to do that..lol I know you guys dont like this, but i'm pretty confident that we do just find in bull selection because our % prove it.

There is not a photographer in the world that could take a picture that would put an ass on that bull. You did a fine job of showing him as he actually is. :roll:

Keep digging that hole.........you are almost at the bottom :frowns:

 

[cowgirl8]

Holsteiny looking sims? Never heard of that. I actually have several sim/angus and they look all beef. That cow looks at least 3/4 dairy. No way she don't have Holstein n her.

Dependson how old you are and how long you've been around sims. We raise our own heifers. No Holstein in our herd. We did however have a half Holstein bottle calf in 1983. Not sure if we ever kept any heifers out of her. But the steer we had last year was not out of this cow but a red specly sim and big boy jr. If I was told right sims are or were used as dairy cows and the reason we wanted most of our cows mixed with sim. Our reason was to have mostly black cows that gave more milk. So far so good.

 

[3waycross]

Dough Boy is helping out BIg Boy this year. He's just a year old, but i bet he'll get a few calves mixed in. He's out of a black brangus/sim cow and out of our simbraish bull. Not sure why he came out light red, but most of his calves should be black. We'll see, he sure beat our expectations on gain and thats what we like. He's out of a line of very productive cows that live off air. Waiting for all that fuzzy hair to fall out to see what we have under all that fluff..He was treated like all our homegrown bulls, weaned and thrown out with the older bulls. Never saw a bucket of feed and grew on medium quality hay only. We've paid a lot of money for a fat fluffy registered bull for him to show us what he really looked like under all that fat the breeder put on him when he was put out without all that feed. I want to see what that bull has naturally, not fat. But, if that bull can pack on the pounds on pasture, thats what we look for.

Please enlighten the rest of us here as to why this RED bull would throw mostly black calves. He will throw all black calves with Homo Blk cows.

The rest is a crapshoot....of course you already knew that, this was just a test to see if anyone was actually reading this drivel. :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: