Bull Question

[Tex78]

New to the forum. My question is mainly for
Texas members. I run cattle in Alpine area as well as south central texas and on the gulf coast. I've been told that bringing cattle from Alpine and west texas to south and central or the gulf coast is not a great idea due to the difference in forage and climate. I'm going to need a younger bull to put on heifers and and few middle age cows on my place in south texas. Was wondering if the same idea of keeping cows from west texas in west texas applied to bulls also. Particulary younger bulls. I have some awesome angus bulls coming up in Alpine that would suit my heifers and crossbred cows in the south perfectly. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Jessica06]

Howdy!

When we first bought cattle we had them in the Hill Country, then moved them to where we are on the coast just north of Victoria. Angus and club calf types. We still have nearly all of them..I think about half have failed to breed back in their season once and got moved to the spring. What time of the year makes a bit of a difference. If you move them when it starts getting cooler I think they do better. We moved ours in late winter.

I think, for Angus bulls, this area is hard on them no matter what part of the country they are from. If they don't have a lot of hair in the summer, that helps. We have bought Angus bulls from a breeder in the area with really good cattle to use on heifers and they work pretty good, but they still don't handle it nearly as well as our Brangus bulls. So it's all relative. I think that your bulls would get the job done. As far as forage goes, we found out pretty quick that just because there is tons of awesome looking grass, that doesn't mean that you can just throw them out on it and let them go. We supplement with liquid protein nearly year-round.

Of course all of that is for the coast. South central has better grass and a little drier climate, so take all of that with a grain of salt.

 

[Tex78]

Thanks for your input. I do have some brangus bulls also, that would be another option for me. I think I'll keep the cows out west and try a brangus bull on a small herd of heifers from the coast that I'm planning on moving to my place further south. Really need rain there, 400 acres and I'm not comfortable with more than 20 cows on it till we get some decent rains. Thanks again.