Bull pick of this years crop

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cowgirl8

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Loved watching my husband walk around this calf.. He really likes it, looked back at me and said, "You aren't banding this one!"

 
Really hoping he's brindle.. We had one last year that was a maroon brindle but we banded that herd very early. He was beautiful and weaned out at over 700 pounds... This years calf is built better though, he's wide and long. We have an older bull that is so longed bodied, we've tried to work that into our cows for about 5 years.
 
sim.-ang.king":2tpxie11 said:
Looks promising, could work if his legs are built right.
What's his breeding?
Sim/angus
We bought a bull from our daughter who is sim/simbra/angus and black Hereford. He is the ugliest bull. Legs are horrible. BUt he produces the biggest heavy built calves that sold well. We almost sold him this winter, but we kept a few heifers out of him and they also grew huge quick but legs are nice. So we'll keep him for another season. We also bought a reg angus bull. Got in a bull pinch and needed one. Bought a AI guys cleanup bull that didn't sell because he was short. Every calf out of him are the longest legged calves...lol...You can pick them out easily, well, also because they are solid and the other bulls produce w/f....but, if they were all solid you'd be able to pick his out. It will be interesting to see how they grow out, if the legs stay long...even though his are short..lol
 
M-5":j9cpozty said:
sim.-ang.king":j9cpozty said:
So he's out the angus bull, and not the cross bull with bad legs?



SimAngus
Any animal whose parents are both registered and is at least 1/8 Simmental and 1/4 Angus and no more than 1/4 other breed
Most of our sims from the 80s and 90s were reg, we just didn't reg them. When we went angus, we only bought reg angus...so, they are a mixture of sim and angus of various %......so, tech to us, they are sim/angus....
 
cowgirl8":resji4pq said:
M-5":resji4pq said:
sim.-ang.king":resji4pq said:
So he's out the angus bull, and not the cross bull with bad legs?



SimAngus
Any animal whose parents are both registered and is at least 1/8 Simmental and 1/4 Angus and no more than 1/4 other breed
Most of our sims from the 80s and 90s were reg, we just didn't reg them. When we went angus, we only bought reg angus...so, they are a mixture of sim and angus of various %......so, tech to us, they are sim/angus....
in mixes like that, as good as the crossbred calf looks.it's a gamble if he can atleast reproduce himself, let alone better than..
 
ALACOWMAN":lhmposaz said:
in mixes like that, as good as the crossbred calf looks.it's a gamble if he can atleast reproduce himself, let alone better than..
We are finally getting where we want. That red bull of ours, last year, pulled all his bull calves born Feb to May, hauled to the sale barn where they grouped most of them at the average of 651 pounds and sold for over 1000 a calf...So, I can confidently say they produce themselves..
Not sure what we do different than others who cant do this, but we have it working. I think someone here said its probably because our cows are good...Well, we've raised all our cows and yes, our cows are outstanding.
Bull with the bad legs has that wild gene we look for. Although I say his legs are bad, bad is his back legs are a little posty and him being so big its a little strange looking..This bull has such tremendous growth, although he didn't stop growing. He stands over a foot taller than out biggest cows at 3 with not one drop of feed or special treatment after he was weaned and his calves seem to be born moderate weight. He also has skurs, but, that's not too bothersome..but we did have a calf with skurs which is..BUt, we'll probably just sell that calf anyway.. This is our first year to get many calves out of him, he only produced a few last year since he was the youngest bull in the pasture.. We left a few bulls out of him bulls.
 
cowgirl8":50e0g76x said:
ALACOWMAN":50e0g76x said:
in mixes like that, as good as the crossbred calf looks.it's a gamble if he can atleast reproduce himself, let alone better than..
We are finally getting where we want. That red bull of ours, last year, pulled all his bull calves born Feb to May, hauled to the sale barn where they grouped most of them at the average of 651 pounds and sold for over 1000 a calf...So, I can confidently say they produce themselves..
Not sure what we do different than others who cant do this, but we have it working. I think someone here said its probably because our cows are good...Well, we've raised all our cows and yes, our cows are outstanding.
Bull with the bad legs has that wild gene we look for. Although I say his legs are bad, bad is his back legs are a little posty and him being so big its a little strange looking..This bull has such tremendous growth, although he didn't stop growing. He stands over a foot taller than out biggest cows at 3 with not one drop of feed or special treatment after he was weaned and his calves seem to be born moderate weight. He also has skurs, but, that's not too bothersome..but we did have a calf with skurs which is..BUt, we'll probably just sell that calf anyway.. This is our first year to get many calves out of him, he only produced a few last year since he was the youngest bull in the pasture.. We left a few bulls out of him bulls.

It is apparrent you have a program that works for you. It is hard for some to say a positive word. Jealousy doesn't look good on a person. Like I say if it works for you that is what matters. And pounds pay and it sounds like you are getting there also. By now the buyers at the barn know your cattle and that is why they sell well. They know how they will feed and do on the rail. Keep the pictures coming. Enjoy seeing them.
 
elkwc":147o6q4h said:
It is apparrent you have a program that works for you. It is hard for some to say a positive word. Jealousy doesn't look good on a person. Like I say if it works for you that is what matters. And pounds pay and it sounds like you are getting there also. By now the buyers at the barn know your cattle and that is why they sell well. They know how they will feed and do on the rail. Keep the pictures coming. Enjoy seeing them.
Thank you...
 
cowgirl8":3mm98cqr said:
sim.-ang.king":3mm98cqr said:
So he's out the angus bull, and not the cross bull with bad legs?
No he's not out of the black Hereford.
So he's a BH-Sim-brah-angus? He looks nice and would do well in the feedlot, but you would lose a lot of ground using him as a bull.
Maybe cut him and break him as a show steer, then sell him or let a loval 4-h'er show him..
 
sim.-ang.king":2ztxultl said:
cowgirl8":2ztxultl said:
sim.-ang.king":2ztxultl said:
So he's out the angus bull, and not the cross bull with bad legs?
No he's not out of the black Hereford.
So he's a BH-Sim-brah-angus? He looks nice and would do well in the feedlot, but you would lose a lot of ground using him as a bull.
Maybe cut him and break him as a show steer, then sell him or let a loval 4-h'er show him..
He will go into the bull pasture this fall and if he continues to grow he'll go out as a bull. Every calf we keep as a bull has to continue growing on grass.. So far, for the past 20ish years we've been selecting our replacement bulls like this. They outperform most of our reg bulls as to the reason we've continued this. Works for us, might not for others. If we were going to lose ground, we would have lost it years ago. Husband has an eye on picking replacements, he's really good at it. Our replacement cows have continued to improve. Most of our reg cows back last century had things I did not like. You drive through our herds and those problems are now just a faint memory.....We don't just keep bulls, we also keep every cow we have..If we were losing ground, we'd see it in our cows first.
 
cowgirl8":1lcdnw0k said:
sim.-ang.king":1lcdnw0k said:
cowgirl8":1lcdnw0k said:
No he's not out of the black Hereford.
So he's a BH-Sim-brah-angus? He looks nice and would do well in the feedlot, but you would lose a lot of ground using him as a bull.
Maybe cut him and break him as a show steer, then sell him or let a loval 4-h'er show him..
He will go into the bull pasture this fall and if he continues to grow he'll go out as a bull. Every calf we keep as a bull has to continue growing on grass.. So far, for the past 20ish years we've been selecting our replacement bulls like this. They outperform most of our reg bulls as to the reason we've continued this. Works for us, might not for others. If we were going to lose ground, we would have lost it years ago. Husband has an eye on picking replacements, he's really good at it. Our replacement cows have continued to improve. Most of our reg cows back last century had things I did not like. You drive through our herds and those problems are now just a faint memory.....We don't just keep bulls, we also keep every cow we have..If we were losing ground, we'd see it in our cows first.

If you have been using bulls, and heifers out of your herd for the past 20ish years, then really you don't have breed X-Y-Z. After so long of genetic makeup coming from one source, you actually begin to stabilize the composite makeup, and make a new genetic line.
If you had 10 angus cows, and bred them all to a Simmental bull. Then took the resulting F1 calves, and only used them for breeding, say 1 bull and 6 heifers from the cross, and used the F1 bull on the F1 heifers. You would have a Line 1 composite, and after years of breeding within that line, you would make a stabilize composite line. Which would be neither Angus nor Simmental, but a composite.
After making a composite though, you can do two things, either go on breeding within the Line 1, or bring in outside genetics.
Continual breeding within the line has some good, and some bad.
The good is you get consistent calves, and know what you will get year over year. Plus the bonus of being able to market composite breeding stock to commercial breeders.
The bad is you lose out on any possibility of increased performance that outside genetics might proved, by add new genetics to the mix. You also are at greater risk of genetic defects to start showing up, and affecting your entire line.

Bring in outside genetics has some perks, and some pit falls.
One perk would be increased performance from outside genetics. Just like the original cross between the angus cows, and Simmental bull resulted in superior calves, compared to the parents. So too would the calves be from a stabilized composite, and a purebred, or crossbred from another line. Plus the added benefit of less chance of genetic defects being replicated.
One of the downsides would be the loss of consistent calf crops, to some degree, but using a composite on a purebred, and making those calves terminal would negate most of that.

You could split your herd, and have your best cows working toward stabilizing the line, and the other half as terminal, and use a PB bull on them.
I am currently working on breeding up some of my best cows towards making PB simmentals, and I use them for replacements. But most of my cows get bred terminal, and the calves get sold. This really helps me get to the goals I want in making my own PB line, without losing out on performance I get from using different PB bulls on crossbred cows.
 
As long as you know where your going and still making progress in getting there with your own cattle there is no reason to add outside blood.

I don't have all the pieces I need so bringing in outside blood is what I have to do to get where I want to be.
 
elkwc":1c6rrdpp said:
cowgirl8":1c6rrdpp said:
ALACOWMAN":1c6rrdpp said:
in mixes like that, as good as the crossbred calf looks.it's a gamble if he can atleast reproduce himself, let alone better than..
We are finally getting where we want. That red bull of ours, last year, pulled all his bull calves born Feb to May, hauled to the sale barn where they grouped most of them at the average of 651 pounds and sold for over 1000 a calf...So, I can confidently say they produce themselves..
Not sure what we do different than others who cant do this, but we have it working. I think someone here said its probably because our cows are good...Well, we've raised all our cows and yes, our cows are outstanding.
Bull with the bad legs has that wild gene we look for. Although I say his legs are bad, bad is his back legs are a little posty and him being so big its a little strange looking..This bull has such tremendous growth, although he didn't stop growing. He stands over a foot taller than out biggest cows at 3 with not one drop of feed or special treatment after he was weaned and his calves seem to be born moderate weight. He also has skurs, but, that's not too bothersome..but we did have a calf with skurs which is..BUt, we'll probably just sell that calf anyway.. This is our first year to get many calves out of him, he only produced a few last year since he was the youngest bull in the pasture.. We left a few bulls out of him bulls.

It is apparrent you have a program that works for you. It is hard for some to say a positive word. Jealousy doesn't look good on a person.....There's one thing you can rest assured of,.is me being jealous...jealousy had absolutely ""nothing"""to do with my post..
 

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