Bull Calves

[Seadanes]

We are new to this and I'm wondering how you know if you keep a calf as a bull prospect or castrate for a meat steer? We have an awesome bull we picked at a year. At 14 months we brought in 10 heifers and he bred 7 of them in short order. One was already bred. When he was 18 months, we brought him 4 more heifers and he bred all of them in short order as well.

The calves are coming true to type, small at birth, filling out nicely on mama's milk and grass. They're bright and curious. We have Murray Grey cattle, not super common in Texas so we are trying to decide if we should offer up any of these bull calves for sale as herd sire prospects or just castrate to raise for delicious tender beef.

I know there are a lot of really knowledgeable folks here so thought I'd get some thoughts before I make any final decisions.

 

[Seadanes]

Forgot this part - here's our first at 5 months.

 

[M-5]

he looks light in the rear, I would cut him

 

[Ebenezer]

From the picture, I think you need something different either for bull sales or profitable meat sales. Don't plan on making money at the sale barn, either.

 

[Muddy]

Cut him. Not enough masculinity in that calf at that age.

 

[Kingfisher]

Search backbone ranch. He has awesome MG. Look at his calves. Then reach out to him and do what he suggests. He's in Texas too.

 

[dun]

he looks light in the rear, I would cut him

Yup

 

[gizmom]

Best advise I ever received was to measure our cattle. Take birth weights, weaning weights and yearling weights. See how the cow family is performing and only keep bulls that perform very well. If you go to put a bull into a bull test they require that the calf is gaining at min 2.5 pounds per day, if your calf isn't doing that then he isn't performing at the bare minimum of what the industry expects. If your calves are not gaining at the min. then ask yourself why, is it management or genetics. If the same genetics are gaining in other herds then you need to look at your management.

gizmom

 

[SPH]

I agree with what gizmom just said. We take all 3 weights along with running the replacement heifers and bulls across the scale once or twice between weaning and yearling to check their progress too. Typically we'll pick out up to 4 bulls most years for our sale pen and sometimes will retain 1 of them for ourselves. We have some requirements that we won't look past: 1 is birth weight and calving ease. Typically 90 lb BW is our cutoff but we occasionally will make exceptions if even if they are say 93 or 94 and we are confident in the genetics in their breeding that they won't be heavy BW bulls. That's also where we look at their CE and BW EPD and if they aren't in an acceptable range for our standards then we will cut them. Most of the time though our bull calves will have BW's in the upper 70's to mid to lower 80's. Any extreme such a 100# BW is an automatic cut regardless how good that calf may look or perform. The next criteria is how did that calf do at weaning compared to his peers. Typically our top WW ratio bulls make the sale pen and the rest get cut and most year's it's usually the same cows that have the top bull calves which also helps us market them when we can show that either we are using a son out of one of those cows ourselves or have sold multiple sons out of her. Then lastly after they meet all the weight and performance criteria we look at structure. If there are any flaws we feel are not desirable such as bad legs or feet or lack of muscling, basically anything that you wouldn't want in your own herd are reasons not to keep them intact as bulls. We have our decisions made on bull calves shortly after weaning as we cut bulls the same time we have the vet out to preg check cows a few weeks after we wean. If you don't like a bull calf at weaning chances are you probably won't like him as a yearling either.

One of the best things someone once told me was if you are going to sell bulls, you pick out bulls that you would have no issue with using them in your own herd. If you wouldn't use that bull in your own herd for a reason other than you already have too much relation or same genetics he is out of then why would he be acceptable for someone else?

 

[Backbone Ranch]

It is great to see another Murray Grey breeder on this board! :welcome:
Regarding your bull calves, I would have to agree with Gizmom and SPH. If you would not want the bull calf to breed your cows, then he needs to be cut. In our program, we make the final decision as to who gets castrated at weaning time. The best bulls remain intact, and the mediocre-bottom end get castrated and put into the beef program. That way, the best bull calves get to pass on their genetics and improve the gene pool and the remainder become very tasty beef.
We start evaluating the bull calves at birth. Before we determine who remains intact, we look at birth weight, weaning weight, structure, their sire and dam, and also tenderness and marbling scores. If we have a calf in the low 90s at birth, it is not out of the running for a bull prospect, but we prefer calves that are in the 65-85 lb realm. Most of our bull calves gain an average of around 2 lbs per day from birth until weaning.

 

[Seadanes]

Thanks for all the helpful advice! We know each other, Backbone! We bought a couple of meat steers from you last year - in fact one is standing here head-butting me right now because he smells the alfalfa cubes in my pocket.

All of our calves have been born nice and small, and like I said, I'm really pleased with our bull's performance. I just didn't want to make a mistake and cut one that might be good for furthering this breed I love. That said, as a newbie, it may be best to let the more experienced further the breed and I'll carry on selling delicious grass fed beef.

 

[Seadanes]

Search backbone ranch. He has awesome MG. Look at his calves. Then reach out to him and do what he suggests. He's in Texas too.

Missed this one, but, yes, Backbone and I actually know each other. We would have bought a bull from her last year had we not committed elsewhere (though I'm very happy with my bull), but when it's time for a new bull, we plan to get one from Backbone.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

Great to hear from you Seadanes! I'm glad that those steers turned out well for you. We should be approaching 60 cow/calf pairs in the next few years, so there should be more a bit more of a selection and some different bloodlines through our AI calves. Best wishes.

 

[WRFarms]

Since nobody has talked about her much, I think it's worth mentioning the Dam. The number one thing I look at when deciding to keep a bull is his Dam. Unless she consistently does everything I need her to do then I don't even think about keeping the calf as a bull. The dam has to be sound, correct to type, fertile, have no history of health problems, and consistently perform at or above the herd average. Then I look at the calf. Everyone else here has that covered.