calving season

[Anonymous]

Well, a heifer delivered our first calf of 2003 last night. A New Design 036 bull, 74 lbs and she thinks he's wonderful, can't stop licking him. This is the best part of raising cattle....

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[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

> Well, a heifer delivered our first
> calf of 2003 last night. A New
> Design 036 bull, 74 lbs and she
> thinks he's wonderful, can't stop
> licking him. This is the best part
> of raising cattle.... I agree. Question though, Frankie. With the popularity of that particular bull/ sire (ND 036) don't you ever consider keeping such a calf and raising yourself a bull and maybe forgoing the ai process at least on some of your cows? I have 4 straws of 036 I am going to use on my best cows and if I do get a bull that is phenotypically good I will probably keep him, ultrasound him, and maybe even use him instead of ai on at least some of my cows. What's your opinion? TSR

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[Anonymous]

While we're raising good bulls, we don't feel like we can afford to use them in our own herd. A good looking bull, with good performance information will sell well. But half the calves born here will be heifers and, in my experience, a pasture sired heifer sells for commercial prices. Since we don't have a large herd, we just can't take that discount on heifers. So we'll keep AI-ing. We've still got 10-12 straws of 036. We bred a few heifers to his son, 878, last year. We'll see how they do.

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