black simmental pics- for real this time, lol

[Brandonm2]

The bull has gotten a little unbalanced looking; but part of that is age in a six year old bull. Most bulls get a little heavy fronted as they age. Other than that he looked good to me and his calf was really nice. IF you are getting 600 pound weaning weights, structurally sound cattle, nonexcessive birth wts, 95% of the cows settled, and heifers you like then the bull was a winner whether or not he would have won his class in Denver.

 

[farmerD44]

i would say we averaged 600lb+ weaning wieghts on our simmentals with the largest being 730- although i have no idea the day he was born. we have never wieghed our cattle at weaning before- but now that we are turning part of our herd to registered angus we are wieghing them so i put some of the bigger simmies through too for the fun of it.

of course that larger one we had to pull out!!!! LOL

overall he has been a high calving ease bull. his calves come out long and skinny and just slide right out. the calving problems we did have probably came from the fault of the cow not the bull.

and his calves have all had plenty of length and a nice smooth topline just like his. and fill out nicley on the feedlot

if u guys saw him from the back end- u would see that his rump is pretty good size

We will have the first heifers from him having calves this spring- it will be interesting to see how good they are- my convidence is high

also his temperment cant be beat.

Dan.

 

[farmerD44]

Jeane- what do u mean by fine boned???? his bones are huge up close!!!!!

Dan.

 

[Brandonm2]

I figured he must have worked out well or he wouldn't have lasted six years.

 

[farmerD44]

i forgot to add that we rubber band our steer calves shortly after birth- i beleive this reduces their weaning weight????? this doesnt really matter to us as we feed all of our cattle out to slaughter.

JEANNE- i just remembered that the Dam of the calf pictured was sired by one of the Black Bear sires. dont know which one. It was one of select sires bulls i think. She has been a pretty good cow- but she bred back too late this year and is getting culled. also her temperment at calving season is horrible!!!!!!!

Dan.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

I liked the top line of the first bull, but liked his son better as a whole.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I wasn't trying to upset you, just my opinion. Like I said many people like fine bone, doesn't make him bad. That's what makes this fun - everyone has a different opinion, likes & dislikes.
I like the calf real well.
Just curious, if you are getting real good WW and calving ease from the Simm, why are you switching to PB Angus?

 

[Brandonm2]

If I remember correctly, he has purchased some reg Angus heifers and wants the new bull to do cleanup on them AND settle his commercial simmie cross cows.

 

[farmerD44]

that is correct- and it will be a great cross with the simmentals.

and even better calving ease and no horns guaranteed- although we dont have many anymore anyway with all the polled simmentals out there. we may go back to a simmental bull someday. will probably be raising our own bulls after this year for a while- rather it be angus or simmy. I have a good one right now that we are ganna try out on my uncles simm-angus heifers next spring when he will be a yearling. He(PB angus) is a lowbirthweight bull with fairly good growth- he wieghed 68lbs at birth and close to 650 at 215 days. this was with a set back of a selenium deficiency that we had this year and he was out of a first calf heifer. Next year we will have a better one to raise with higher bithwieght and growth out of 2nd calf cows. That is the plan anyway- but we only got 5 of them AIed last year. the others got bred by the simmy bull. so we could have all heifers- which would be fine too since i want to expand the angus part of the herd!!!! lol

Dan.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

that is correct- and it will be a great cross with the simmentals.

You're right - best cross ever!!!

this was with a set back of a selenium deficiency that we had this year

So Minnesota is selenium deficient also. NY is really bad. What was your problem? and how did you figure out it was SE deficient?
SE affects so many different aspects of our industry. Poor cycling, settling, calving, retained placentas, scruffy hair coats, poor growth, etc - lists goes on & on - especially bad for newborns - white muscle disease (dumb suckers & weak calves).

 

[farmerD44]

jeanne--- this is the first time we have ever had a problem with selenium deficiency. It hit the calves. we had one that was down a few days before we figured out what it was- it was down close to 10 days!!!! and another one was down 2 to 3 days. These were both from the purebred angus heifers we bought and bred the year before. we treated these 2 calves with BO-SE and it worked but they were stunted from it. the purebred heifer we weighed at weaning and it only wieghed 350lbs so we wont be keeping that one for breeding.

Our vet didnt give us very good info- or we would have given all the calves a shot and started feeding selenium salt immedietly. Lots of people had trouble in this area last year. seemed to hit the angus the most. Somthing was short in the feed last year or something.

From now on all calves will be getting BO-SE at birth. and we will be feeding more selenium over the winter and spring. The angus purebreds also didnt start cycling till later on in the spring- must also be from the deficiency????? thats why we only got 5 of them AI'ed this year.

Dan.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Dan, it affects different cattle differently - within the same herd. Seems like higher producing cows are more affected. Low selenium definately affects reproduction - cycling & settling.
Never heard of a calf getting stunted from a slow start like that though. Unless she had some lung damage from a secondary problem. So often when they are selenium deficient, they are weak, don't suck properly and end up getting an infection.
I wouldn't think of not giving BoSe to newborns. We are so deficient - we feed triple the dose of Se in our mineral year round. I DO NOT recommend this for others. It is toxic. We blood tested a sampling of our herd - several times - increasing the dosage until we got to a level that was sufficient.

 

[farmerD44]

jeanne--- actually these calves were from lower producing cows- the one half dried up so the calf didnt get much milk all summer. the other one got plenty of milk cuz it was only down a couple days and got up long enough to suck a little each day so it had good milk all summer but is still about the same size. No lung problems that i know of- they both look good now just too small.

Dan.

 

[Beefy]

did you know that they think that HIV1 and Ebola may be stimulated by selenium deficiencies? and that there is a selenium pour-on for cattle?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

FarmerD - didn't think about the fact that cow might have dried up during the "down" time. that's do it!!

did you know that they think that HIV1 and Ebola may be stimulated by selenium deficiencies? and that there is a selenium pour-on for cattle?

Beefy, didn't hear that. Se pour-on - interesting. Do you know who's handling it?? Haven't seen it adv yet. That'd be the cat's meow! Hate giving shots - especially now that they all have to be in the neck.