charolais calving question

[gabbyellepaige]

i have a charolais heifer.
And for her first calf my breeder suggested against breeding her with a charolais,
for her first calf because of how big they are.
he suggests a smaller breed.
so i was wondering if it was okk to breed her to a charolais because i want to show the calf, when i go to college or my little sister will get the calf and show it when she gets into highschool next year.
and we dont do ORB or ORAB.

 

[whitecow]

It's absolutely OK to breed her to Charolais. Just be careful to choose a calving ease/low birth weight bull. All of the semen studs have some calving ease sires available. ABS has Doc Silver, Genex has Bluegrass and others. Bovine Elite has a large selection. Look for Calving Ease Direct EPDs of >8.0 and BW EPDs that are negative. Pay attention to the accuracies of the EPDs also. Try to choose a proven bull with accuracies >0.85 for those traits.

 

[Baldie Maker]

I really like that bluegrass bull and it only helps that Wyoming wind is his MGS

 

[VLS_GUY]

What is the heifers breeding and own birth weight? Size? Unless she has a birth weight well north of 100 LBs or is out of a cow with known calving issues you can use a Charolais heifer bull with confidence. In factg enough proven heifer bulls exist that you can choose the traits you want to emphasize. LT has produced easy calving bulls that IMO are far better than Bluegrass depending on the female to be used on. If you want some Wyoming Wind Influence Three Trees Wind 0383 ( $ 50) is a good choice. For an even lighter birth weight EPD than Bluegrass look at LT Silver Distance.
By the way LT has a new calving ease/performance bull called Winn Mans Lanza. Negitive birth weight EPDs and sky high yearling weight EPDs. Check him out at: http://www.highcountryheifers.com.au/do ... /lanza.pdf
An old bull that works very well on Heifers is Baldridge Fasttrack. A calving ease bull that is rapidly proving himself is SVY Kaboom. He has plenty of eye appeal and show ring appeal. Kabbom is a SVY Freedom son out of MXS Vermillion a calving ease bull in Canada. The only problem is that he has an accuracy of .6 on a -3.0 birth weight EPD due to his first calves only now being reported.

 

[Northern Rancher]

I think LT Bluegrass would be a pretty safe bet.

 

[cow pollinater]

I had a customer that calved eighty charolias, angus, and somewhere in between heifers as two year olds that I had bred to Doc Silver. He pulled three calves. One was a breach and the other two were from his angus cleanup bull. That qualifies as calving ease. :banana:

 

[VLS_GUY]

Of the two bulls our AI technicians mention Bluegrass and Doc Silver: Doc Silver has the best Birth Weight and growth numbers. Bluegrass has better REA and maternal (slight). Generally you can calve heifers to Charolais bulls as long as their birth weight EPD is -2.0 or less. I do not see a difference between a -3.0 or lower bull.
The big reason why NR and Pollinator mention these bulls is because these are the bulls they sold as sales reps. The bulls I mention aren't owned by AI studs.

 

[ANAZAZI]

I advise against it. Rather choose another breed, something with real calving ease, even if the calf becomes a runt. Calving trouble is a bad way to loose a charolais heifer.

 

[VLS_GUY]

Anazazi,

We have experience calving large groups of Charolais cross and well grown out British continental cross heifers to Charolais bulls with birth weights of -3.0 or less with no problems. Our bull customers started doing this against our advice on Hereford Fleckvieh cross heifers because the Charolais bull they bought had the lightest birth weight of all the bulls they purchased that year. That bull worked well with none of the 35 calves produced needing a hand on them at birth. The Red Angus bull in the pasture with him was not ideal for heifers with a 97 pond birth weight and he had a few light pulls. The red Angus bull also had lower performance that translated into a $ 75.00 lower gross on the steers. What does this mean? You can use carefully selected Charolais calving ease bulls on modern growthy heifers of Charolais or even British breeding and make it work If the management and know how is there.
Since you are in Sweden you may want to try and use some of the bulls I mentioned on your cows. North American Charolais are the most maternal and growthy of any strains in the Charolais breed. Look at the bloodlines use in Norge and Svenska; most of them are North American due to calving ease, growth, and maternal capabilities. Lastly the Red Charolais has just about wiped out the Blonde D'Aquitaine in Canada. Bonde D'Aquitaine bulls are not consistent compared to a Charolais. For one of the reasons Bondes lost market share look at: http://www.charolaisbanner.com/dbarl/semen10/pierce.htm

 

[cattleman99]

Their is no reason you can't breed her Charolais unless there are issues with the heifer herself. If you want to show the calf I would recommend not breeding her to another breed. With a Charolais or Simmental you don't need 75 or 80 lb calves for calving ease.

 

[deenranch]

There are a lot of calving ease bulls in the charolais breed... The breeders have brought there birth weights down a whole lot over the last ten years... I breed all my heifers to charolais bulls...

Three Trees Wind 0383
BHD Reality
CJC Illusion N111
SR/NC Field Rep
ABC Leader
LT Bluegrass
LT Predictable Mac
M6 Gridmaker 104
VCR Sir Duke 9918

All of these bulls are calving ease... There are a lot more out there.. These are some I have used..

I like the Reality, Illusion, Three Trees Wind and Gridmaker the best....
I have used all these bulls on charolais heifers and haven't had any problems...

The Gridmaker will throw the biggest of the four I mentioned.

The other three will throw 70 - 80 pound calves all day long out of my cows...

The BW EPD doesn't always tell the truth... I have calved heifers out of these bulls and would recommend any of the bulls I listed....

 

[CSM]

I would not be afraid to use a Charolais on the heifer, but I would get a pelvic measurement on her if I was having some doubts.

CSM

 

[whitecow]

I ran a quick report from the data we have in our CattleMax database (about 2 yrs worth).

87 calves born from 1st calf hfrs. 51 bulls average 68.6 lbs. 36 hfrs averaged 64.2 lbs. All were sired by either Baldridge Kojak, Three Trees Wind 0383, LT Easy Blend, BPC BottomLine (home-raised) or a home-raised Wyoming Wind son. All but one was unassisted. The one assisted calf weighed 60 lbs....hfr just didn't try. Largest calf was 87 lbs by Easy Blend. Smallest was 55 lbs by Kojak.

 

[bigag03]

Absolutely, breed her to a Charolais. It is a ridiculous suggestion that a Charolais (or any other breed) heifer can't or shouldn't have a purebred calf.

 

[ANAZAZI]

Anazazi,

We have experience calving large groups of Charolais cross and well grown out British continental cross heifers to Charolais bulls with birth weights of -3.0 or less with no problems. Our bull customers started doing this against our advice on Hereford Fleckvieh cross heifers because the Charolais bull they bought had the lightest birth weight of all the bulls they purchased that year. That bull worked well with none of the 35 calves produced needing a hand on them at birth. The Red Angus bull in the pasture with him was not ideal for heifers with a 97 pond birth weight and he had a few light pulls. The red Angus bull also had lower performance that translated into a $ 75.00 lower gross on the steers. What does this mean? You can use carefully selected Charolais calving ease bulls on modern growthy heifers of Charolais or even British breeding and make it work If the management and know how is there.
Since you are in Sweden you may want to try and use some of the bulls I mentioned on your cows. North American Charolais are the most maternal and growthy of any strains in the Charolais breed. Look at the bloodlines use in Norge and Svenska; most of them are North American due to calving ease, growth, and maternal capabilities. Lastly the Red Charolais has just about wiped out the Blonde D'Aquitaine in Canada. Bonde D'Aquitaine bulls are not consistent compared to a Charolais. For one of the reasons Bondes lost market share look at: http://www.charolaisbanner.com/dbarl/semen10/pierce.htm

Thank you VLS. I will not use charolais as they do not fit into my program. There are of course calving ease bulls inside the breed too, and the reason I advised to breed the heifer to something extra calving ease was that she has only one. I helped more than many char heifers deliver ther first calf, and more than once the calf or both calf and heifer were lost. That is what I thought of.

 

[longhorncross]

I have some Charolais Texas Longhorn cross heifers. What would be the best bulls to put on them (AI is best) to produce productions steers? I was thinking Angus, Chi, Main or Limousin. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

What ever suites your fancy.

 

[Cross breeder #1]

I have some Charolais Texas Longhorn cross heifers. What would be the best bulls to put on them (AI is best) to produce productions steers? I was thinking Angus, Chi, Main or Limousin. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Limo, Gelbvieh, or Simmi. 3-WAY-CROSS

 

[tamarack]

I have been looking for a char bull to ai some of my semi x sh heifers and will be using a red char called Canyon in the Semex Beef catolog looks good and advertised heifer safe.Good luck.

 

[OzssieDave19]

I have angus hereford cross heifers. What should I join them too? I can borrow a yearling char bull. That would be cheapest way out for me.