Charolais bulls

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MurraysMutts

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What are everyone's thought on newer char genetics?
Would you breed em to heifers? Cows only?
I've been told this lil charolais bull is from a registered low birthweight sire. Dont have specifics. Sorry.
All the info I find is from severely outdated. Like 1970s era.
 
If you can keep them in your own place, their calves sell good.

We have multiple properties in multiple different counties... if a neighbors bull is our our place... 90%+ of the time it's a Char bull. :mad: Just lost a darn good Hereford bull who never left where he was supposed to be to a Char repeat offender.

If you actually like your neighbors... I'd go in a different direction.
 
I know that feeling all too well. First bull I had at this place, hereford, disappeared about a week after i turned him out. Got him back, thanks to an awesome neighbor, only for him to commit suicide about a month later. The hereford, not the neighbor!
Put a dog gentle brangus at this same place and he just up and vanished after about a week.
This lil charolais seems very happy so far. Hes staying put. Time will tell but I'm a bit concerned about his offspring and my 4 heifers I've got him with. These heifers are open. Neither of the previous bulls managed to hang around long enough to get anything
done. I've heard char are hard calving. But, like I said, that's old studies with old genetics....
I have some pics but I'm new so they will have to wait I reckon
 
I have a friend that used his on a small group of heifers (8 or 10 can't remember exactly) without any requiring assistance. He did this the breeding season following calving out his mature cows. He saw the size of calves he got on the mature cows and decided it would work. These heifers were 18 month old F1 bwf. This particular bull stays home with 1 strand of electric or 4 strands of barbed wire depending on which farm he is on.
 
Brute, I have a crackerjack of a bull I'm gonna hold on to. Hes out of my only brahma mama and unknown sire. I'll assume daddy was a black bull. He womt be ready for at least a year tho.

CSM, that's a fantastic idea. Unfortunately I need these mamas covered now. Especially after my bad luck with the last 2 bulls.

Picked up a dandy hereford for the home place. Had my bwf commercial bull tested the same time as my new hereford and my bwf is down one jewel. Doc doesnt think he will breed. I witnessed him breed the same cow about 21 or so days apart. Got the char bull on a buddy deal.
 
One of my neighbors probably runs 25-30 Char bulls and 10-15 Angus bulls. But I know that he uses a calving ease Angus on the heifers. He doesn't keep any of the Char cross heifers for replacements. His replacements come from the Angus bulls and his box of crayons cow herd.
 
Now that u mention it...
My replacements, or herd builders if u will, come from black cows and box of crayon bulls.
Had a heck of a time starting out this year.
Really sad about my bull that injured himself or whatever happened to his jewels. Hes a pretty young bull. Only got 1 season out of him.
Just got my second calf on the ground out of him. Hes a whopper of a bull calf.
 
Dave said:
One of my neighbors probably runs 25-30 Char bulls and 10-15 Angus bulls. But I know that he uses a calving ease Angus on the heifers. He doesn't keep any of the Char cross heifers for replacements. His replacements come from the Angus bulls and his box of crayons cow herd.
I'm running the crayon box cows with black bulls. Keeping the best heifers breeding them back to angus bulls. Most of the heifers I've kept are smokes (I have/had several char cross cows). I like the smokes and they sell right with the black ones here, the barn I sell at will weigh and group calves. They sort out off color calves and group the black and smokes together.
 
When I went to pick up a couple of animals, the young bloke had a char bull I think it was..... it was a massive double muscled mountain of a thing, much bigger than Angus or Baldy bulls I seen locally, and he said he had lost a lot of condition....

Frankly, I did not want to be near him, just in case he stepped on me or something accidentally, would rather an F truck run over my foot :)
 
You couldn't give me one.
That is one bull that will never be on my place again! Love the cows.

If I was going to Brahman influenced bull I would choose Brangus.
IMO the reason the Chars have the phenomenon of producing behemoth calves is the Brahman DNA in the woodpile. This Brahman phenomenon is documented by Dr. David Riley of TAMU & MSU using Brahman bulls on English breeds.

Most people today do not realize that there was a breeding up program in Charolais.
"In the late 1940s and early 1950s the breeders established the American Charbray Breeders Association and the American Charolais Breeders Association, both of which limited pedigrees to a blend of Charolais and Brahman breeding. Producers who were utilizing other beef breed cows to produce Charolais by compounding Charolais blood through successive generations, formed the International Charolais Association. In 1957, the American and International Associations merged into today's American-International Charolais Association (AICA). In 1964, the Pan-American Charolais Association, whose registrations were based on performance rather than genetic content, merged into the AICA. And three years later, the American Charbray Breeders Association merged with the AICA, bringing all Charolais-based breeds in the United States under the fold of a single breed registry.

With the limited availability of pure Charolais during the early years, American breeders established a five-generation "breeding-up" program to expand the breed. This program involved using purebred Charolais bulls for five consecutive generations to produce a 31/32 Charolais animal. Geneticists say this percentage is the equivalent of a purebred, containing only 3% of the genetic material from the foundation breed.

Charolais is a naturally horned beef animal, but through the breeding-up program, using other breeds carrying the polled gene, polled Charolais emerged. Some of the breed's strongest herds and leading breeders specialize in the production of high-performing polled Charolais."

The DNA is still in there.
 
Redgully said:
Very good post. I was once told if you dna test an angus today compared to an angus of yesteryear you will find the addition of chianina genes in there.

They didn't go from 800 lbs overnight to a ton without some dollar bills rubbing together.
There are several other breeds as well .
 
Redgully said:
Very good post. I was once told if you dna test an angus today compared to an angus of yesteryear you will find the addition of chianina genes in there.

Hmmm. Around here I always tell people that "40 years ago Angus cows didn't weigh 1,800lbs and Simmentals weren't black. I wonder what happened ?.?
 
SBMF 2015 said:
Redgully said:
Very good post. I was once told if you dna test an angus today compared to an angus of yesteryear you will find the addition of chianina genes in there.

Hmmm. Around here I always tell people that "40 years ago Angus cows didn't weigh 1,800lbs and Simmentals weren't black. I wonder what happened ?.?


I owned a Simmental bull back when they were red and white.
I have an Angus now.
If you're going to run a composite like many of today's breeds you should at least advertise it for what it is. The septic tank of Angus genetics. It confuses me to no end how an entire industry was sold black hide versus quality. It was marketing genius!
 
I owned Simmental half bloods back in 1972 that were solid black. Had nothing to do with PR for black. We bought semen on Fullblood Simmental bulls, used whatever cows you owned to produce your first half blood. If you owned a commercial black cow, you had a 50% or greater chance the offspring would be black - or DILUTED black (grey, smoky, etc). Obviously, you had a 100% chance of getting a polled black halfblood if you had PB Angus cows. Back then, many people contracted dairies to breed their Holsteins for halfblood heifers - most offspring would be black factored.
As a breeder wanting to make a profit - you breed to produce whatever is paying the most money. For some time, black Simmentals were getting the big bucks. Right now, RED is my biggest sale ticket.
 
You better have a backstop when the calves start coming. That thing is so narrow he could stick his tongue out and make a zipper shadow.
 

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