Commercial cross question

[Tower hills cattle]

We are in the market for new bulls, and are thinking of going to red bulls. We have been using black angus bulls, and I guess we are just thinking of changing up a bit. We have increased our cow numbers 30% over last breeding season, and last years bull has gone elsewhere because of a really bad temperament. Our cow herd is 25% Red Angus, 25% Red Angus/Gelbvieh, and 50% Hereford. We sell our calves green tagged in late fall, this year was our first private treaty for all of our calves. Buyer really didn't offer much input on which way to go so I thought I would pose the question here. Which breed would offer us the best terminal cross for the end user, but still maintain a decent temperament. We have not in the past saved replacements, due to some pasture/facility constraints. Any comments?

 

[TxStateCowboy]

Charolais/Limousin.

I would say use a continental breed to cross your british cows for optimal cattle/beef, especially if you're going terminal.

I'm no expert, just the first to reply to your post.

 

[BRG]

I raise Red Angus so I may be a little bias, but I have several customers that are 50% Red Angus and the rest Gelbvieh, Simmental, or Hereford. By putting Red Angus back on them it is a great cross. The females are replacement quality for yourself or someone else and you can get a pretty good premium for Red Angus replacement heifers, ussually at least steer price, around here anyway, while the steers make great feeders. I think that this is one of the better crosses out there. I have a customer that raises the same cross that you mentioned and he topped the market by a nickle last fall and his replacement heifers just topped the market by a dime a couple weeks ago at Ft Pierre. This is a tough black barn and they outsold them all.

Here are 98 head of steers we purchased from a good customer. Check out how they did on feed and in carcass. They are 75% Red Angus while the remainder is Simental and Gelbvieh.
ADG: 3.5lbs
Kill Weight: 1408lbs
Dressing: 64.51%
Prime: 4%
Choice: 82%
Select: 14%
100% were Yield grade 1, 2, & 3


Checkout my website http://www.gillredangus.com make sure you read our spring newsletter and the feeder cattle link.

 

[VanC]

Do you have more than one breeding pasture? If so you could put a good continental bull on the Red Angus and Herefords and a good Red Angus, Hereford or Shorthorn bull on the Red Angus/Gelbviehs. Around here you can usually get good red Limousin, Gelbvieh or Simmental bulls for considerably less than good black ones. Charolais would be a good choice, too. Those yellow calves sell as well as the blacks, at least around here.

Otherwise, I'd do what BRG suggested. If your buyer doesn't care about color, and he likes your Angus calves, he should like Red Angus.

 

[MoGal]

Gold calves sell as well as black calves here too...... and in many pastures you see them gold cows producing a fine calf whether its bred back english or continental.

I think you'd be happy with a charolais bull.

 

[Brandonm2]

Gelbvieh (red or black). You got three breeds out there now. I would be hesitant to add a fourth and 3/4s of your cows are all English so adding some continental to the mix should translate into pounds and heterosis effects. Don't just pick the next bull, settle on a longterm crossbreeding strategy. A Gelbvieh, Red Angus, Hereford rotation would work very well for example, especially given the composition of your herd currently.

 

[Beefmaker]

With your red based herd I would advise going to a black angus bull. He will turn your calf crop black---which still sells the best in my part of the world.

 

[Bez>]

With your red based herd I would advise going to a black angus bull. He will turn your calf crop black---which still sells the best in my part of the world.

Well if it is colour that sells there are a great number of animals that are black.

I personally think the long term - where do you want to be in 5 years - thought process is the best.

Colour is secondary. Unless you want to hit the CAB market by using a Black Maine or one of those black Kaiser Celtic bulls!

They'll never know the difference at the meat counter. And you will get the premium dollar for the animal.



Bez>

 

[WORANCH]

A Simm/angus bull (red or black ) most of your calves will be 75% english 25% continental.

 

[Northern Rancher]

We use South Devon as the terminal cross on our Angus/Hereford cows. When we A'I the best angus cows get bred Angus or Horned Hereford-the better baldy cows get A'I'ed Angus then everything else we use South Devon on. We have a few South Devon cows but it's hard to find a Devon bull that throws as good of udders as I like so we tend to feedout all the heifers. We sell on a carcass grid and do quite well-you really can't tell the calves apart in the feedlot. We bought a Black South Devon bull from the Midland test did us alot of good. Prairie Granite 112G was his name-I think he's still a trait leader for birth weight in the Devon breed.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

I suggest a canned-planned breeding program for a long term process. You already have a blended cross-bred herd of Red Angus, Hereford, and Gelbvieh, and the next step would be a Continental Bull (Simmental, Charolais, Gelbvieh) with Gelbvieh being my choice right now because of the Gelbvieh influence already there, but make sure it is the Best Bull you can afford! If you keep replacement heifers, cull 20% of your older cows and use a Red Angus as your next bull. Then in two more years, use a Hereford bull, then in two years go back to a Gelbvieh Bull, culling 20% of your older cows each year and replacing them with better heifers from your best cows. By this time you have been rotating bulls, and 12 years have elapsed, and by then you will know what your herd really is, and you can give thought to an updated program.

DOC HARRIS

 

[Limomike]

You do need to think about where you want your herd to be in the next 2-5 years. The black influence is still going strong in our parts, so with a predominantly "red" herd, I still have a black limo bull, and am considering a registered black angus bull.
I will still get a mixture of reds and blacks with great looking calves. Something to consider....
Char, Simms are good also..

 

[novatech]

We are in the market for new bulls, and are thinking of going to red bulls. We have been using black angus bulls, and I guess we are just thinking of changing up a bit. We have increased our cow numbers 30% over last breeding season, and last years bull has gone elsewhere because of a really bad temperament. Our cow herd is 25% Red Angus, 25% Red Angus/Gelbvieh, and 50% Hereford. We sell our calves green tagged in late fall, this year was our first private treaty for all of our calves. Buyer really didn't offer much input on which way to go so I thought I would pose the question here. Which breed would offer us the best terminal cross for the end user, but still maintain a decent temperament. We have not in the past saved replacements, due to some pasture/facility constraints. Any comments?

One thing I do not understand. Why? You already have a private treaty buyer who did not indicate he would like you to change or give you more money if you did. So why would you change what works? I would not change unless I new there was going to be a better profit by doing so. You could be messing up a good thing.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Sometimes I don't think you READ the original posters comments. He already said he does not keep replacements. He already said he wants to go RED. He already said he HAD Angus. And he already said he sold his last Angus bull because of temperament. He is asking for a red - terminal bull - with good disposition.
I would recommend a red Gelbvieh or red Simmental. Sounds like you only have a small continental influence in your herd, so I would definately go with a continental. And since you are looking for quality grade carcasses, I would go with the Simmental, being a better grading continental breed.

 

[BRG]

I would still use a Red Angus, I just herd that at a sale in southeastern IA some Red Angus replacement heifers sold for $1000. If that is true, you will never get that much off of selling feeder heifers. Selling heifers at steer price for a 600 lbs heifer in the fall is an increase of $50 per head. Like I showed in my first post, the carcass and feedlot results are better than almost all other cattle getting fed. Again, I am bias, but I don't see why you would want to do anything different when you could sell replacements at steer price and feed your steers as good as that. By doing this you would be taking advantage of both markets.

But whatever you do, I am glad to hear that you want to keep them red and go for quality and not just chase color.

But if you really want to go just for pounds and sell strictly feeder cattle, then I would either use a real good performance Red Angus bull or a good Charlais bull and then buy your Red Angus replacement females from a good source.

 

[Tower hills cattle]

Thanks for the input. We have put quite a bit of thought into this before I posed the question here, and we are a couple of facility improvements away from being able to raise and AI our own replacement heifers so I think we are going to go with red angus and build a red angus/hereford cow base. We really like the performance of the red mothers we have now, and the neighbors blacks cows are very easy to sort out when they find a hole in the fence. We have around 50 cows now and could maybe expand with some pasture renovations to carry 10 to 15 more, but enough is enough for now.

Again I really appreciate everyone's input on this. We aren't really rookies to the cattle business, but I am humble enough to take suggestions from others in the industry. I enjoy and learn a lot from these forums.

 

[VanC]

Thanks for the input. We have put quite a bit of thought into this before I posed the question here, and we are a couple of facility improvements away from being able to raise and AI our own replacement heifers so I think we are going to go with red angus and build a red angus/hereford cow base. We really like the performance of the red mothers we have now, and the neighbors blacks cows are very easy to sort out when they find a hole in the fence. We have around 50 cows now and could maybe expand with some pasture renovations to carry 10 to 15 more, but enough is enough for now.

Again I really appreciate everyone's input on this. We aren't really rookies to the cattle business, but I am humble enough to take suggestions from others in the industry. I enjoy and learn a lot from these forums.

I don't think you could go wrong with any of the suggestions made so far. You know your herd, your market, and what kind and quality of bulls are available in your area better than any of us. Good luck.