Cattle Breed Recommendation...Please

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BrannonCarroll

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Hello everyone. And thanks in advance.

I am new to cattle. Been a hobby for the last year or 2. Currently have a handful of cows. I am finally in a position to where I can invest in my herd.

I have a small farm. About 40 acres. I know I will never be a large operation so I thought I would focus on producing high quality cows. I am really interested in having registered cattle.

I personally like BWF. I like simangus, brangus, and like super baldies.
But when I look at purebred I don't see BWF. And don't think a super baldy could be registered.

Looking for recommendations. If you could start from scratch, and pick your starter cows. What would you get and why?

I was leaning toward a registered simmental bull x registered angus. An sell the F1 registered simangus.

I can find bwf simangus. Would it be better to have simangus bull x simangus cows (all bwf)? If I do that, I wasn't sure about the registration, if it would create many baldies, and really what bred they would be.

Just wanted to get some semi-professional advice before I start buying
 
You said you like Brangus, and super baldies, so why not get you some good Brangus cows and a good Hereford bull and raise you some baldies? Why do you care that you can't register them?
 
Being new to cattle too.. I'd go with a good quality animals and crossbreeding..get a few years of experience before you jump into the registered business.. A lot of small registered breeders out there,thats been doing it for years,,and can't compete...
 
BrannonCarroll":2spwi9nm said:
Hello everyone.
I am new to cattle.
I have a small farm. About 40 acres.
I am really interested in having registered cattle.
I like BWF
I like simangus
I was leaning toward.... sell ing F1 registered sim-angus.
I can find bwf sim-angus.
Would it be better to have simangus bull x simangus cows (all bwf)?
If I do that,.... I wasn't sure .... if it would create many baldies,
Seems you have your mind made up.... Registered Black White blazed Face Simmental x Angus cattle.
Simmental association will allow you to register crossbred (SimxAngus) cattle.

Buying Registered Black White Face sim-angus cows and breeding them to a Registered Black bull with a White face
will give you the highest % of black white face offspring.

Registered Does Not = Purebred or Full blood
It only means their paper trail qualifies them to be on PBS Genealogy Road Show - Tracing Your Ancestors.

Breeding a F1 Bull to a F1 cow produces F2 offspring not f1s.
F1s can only be produced by crossing one pure breed animal to a different breed pure animal.
But that will lower % of white face offspring and since BWF is clearly your #1 priority stick with crossing WF to WF.

:welcome:
to the boards
 
Thanks for replying guys.

Believe me, my mind is not made up. So I need all the advice I can get.

Was only considering registered because I need to maximize profit with my small herd. Just thought that would be attractive to someone looking to buy quality cows.
 
It's pretty hard for someone starting out to make money selling registered seedstock. It is a "Name" game, and until you have a good reputation and recognition built up, you will have difficulty getting seedstock prices for what you are selling. I would start with cross bred females bred to a purebred bull (both of composition/ breed that works well for local markets and environment). Focus on producing calves that have real performance and make money on the rail first, and retaining females that have the attributes you place emphasis on. When you have a good base of females built up (after some diligent culling), start using a registered bull from a breed that has a breed up program (Limi, Simmi, Chi, Maine, Char, etc.) Then you can begin building up the number of registered animals in your herd while phasing out the original females as they age out. By the time you have calves with papers on them, you will have enough documented performance and time into the deal, you can make a reasonable foray into selling primarily seedstock.

If you are a multi millionaire, just buy a bunch of registered Angus females and let it ride!!!!!!!!!!! ;-)
 
1 -- Welcome to the boards.

2 -- Begin with the end in mind. Who is going to buy what you're selling? Why do you want to sell to them? Are you doing this purely for the enjoyment of it, or are there a financial consideration (i.e., you need to be profitable each and every year, no matter what, or the cattle all get sold, you realize your loss and you quit raising cattle altogether)? The answers to these two questions should drive everything else.

Until you have those answers, I'm not sure my advice (or any other advice) would be much practical or long-term help.

Good luck!
 
BrannonCarroll":98zhnh1u said:
Hello everyone. And thanks in advance.

I am new to cattle. Been a hobby for the last year or 2. Currently have a handful of cows. I am finally in a position to where I can invest in my herd.

I have a small farm. About 40 acres. I know I will never be a large operation so I thought I would focus on producing high quality cows. I am really interested in having registered cattle.

I personally like BWF. I like simangus, brangus, and like super baldies.
But when I look at purebred I don't see BWF. And don't think a super baldy could be registered.

Looking for recommendations. If you could start from scratch, and pick your starter cows. What would you get and why?

I was leaning toward a registered simmental bull x registered angus. An sell the F1 registered simangus.

I can find bwf simangus. Would it be better to have simangus bull x simangus cows (all bwf)? If I do that, I wasn't sure about the registration, if it would create many baldies, and really what bred they would be.

Just wanted to get some semi-professional advice before I start buying

You will get lots of advice, so all I will say is this.

Look around your area and see what seems to work. Do not look at color initially - look at quality - and talk to those who have it.

Then, start slow and small - 40 acres might sound big but it is not. And, like you said, you might want to consider working real hard to build a small quality herd rather than a big "sloppy" herd.

Enjoy what you do because no matter what anyone tells you, you are the person who has to do the work and therefore you WILL make the mistakes.

Fence them well, provide some decent shelter and feed them right. Get a small handling system in place to make it even easier once you get things set up. Breed them right and cull like the worlds meanest "barstard" - that alone will make you have some pretty decent animals within about 5 - 10 generations.

Best of luck.
 
a lot of people will not agree but I see people with a small set up doing well with a registered herd of Scottish Hilands seem people will buy the calves as a novelty, or for a small acreage pets and they are pushing them a being better for you to eat. I know of someone selling weaning calves for around 1500.00 that I would not give a 100.00 for. If I was going to start out as a small hobby cattle farm I would look at them.
 
BRYANT":7v6x4pid said:
a lot of people will not agree but I see people with a small set up doing well with a registered herd of Scottish Hilands seem people will buy the calves as a novelty, or for a small acreage pets and they are pushing them a being better for you to eat. I know of someone selling weaning calves for around 1500.00 that I would not give a 100.00 for. If I was going to start out as a small hobby cattle farm I would look at them.

The best part about this advice is a suggestion to being willing to do things differently than everyone else around you ...

... so pointing back at my suggestions.

Know who you're marketing to and why. Don't get side-tracked if someone else has a different market and/or a different reason.
 
HDRider":1h0gutlg said:
Registered Longhorns.
Then breed them to registered Char. and get a golden certified Charhorn. :banana: :banana:
Just a joke not trying to start a debate. We all know how some of you feel about that cross.
 
HDRider":395uz3w9 said:
Registered Longhorns.

If Texas Longhorns are produced with large horns, they do sell well. Texas Longhorns are also very easy to keep and will thrive on less than other breeds of beef cattle. The strongest market for Texas Longhorns seems to be Texas.

What area are you in? That can make a difference on what breed or cross you want to raise and how well they will sell.
 
"If Texas Longhorns are produced with large horns, they do sell well. Texas Longhorns are also very easy to keep and will thrive on less than other breeds of beef cattle. The strongest market for Texas Longhorns seems to be Texas."

First of all I will admit I have no experience with Longhorns. One observation, this morning it was 15 below F. I have a neighbor who has purebred longhorns and they seem to not do as well as other breeds in the cold. They seem to hump up more and don't get moving. I am curious if there are others who have seen different reactions from longhorns.

Secondly I am curious. How do run longhorns through a cattle system, alleys and a head gate? My neighbor does not use feeders if he feeds round bales he just dumps them on the ground. I assume a horse feeder would work.

Finally I have another neighbor who has Scotch Highlanders and I will say they take the cold even better than Herefords. The coldest I have seen it around here is a little over 40 below F.

I am not trying to start anything here but it's cold outside, I'm awake and I want to wait to go outside, farmguy.
 
"Most cows doesn't move much at subzero temperatures anyways."

I guess what mine will do is stand in the sun for a couple hours in the morning then go out to winter graze. In our area usually when it's well blow zero the sun is out and little wind.
 

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