Corriente cows

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stocky

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I am going to go look at a herd of corrientes this weekend. I have in mind to do them the way I do longhorns, buy them cheap, dehorn them, and put a charolais bull with them. That works great on longhorns, but I have no experience with Corrientes. Will corrientes raise a good selling calf that weans to 500 lb or better out of a charolais bull? Has anyone had any experience with them? I am told they eat just about anything and I have a wild pasture that is full of sericea lespedeza and weeds that is choking out the fescue and I thought I might put them in there to clean that mess up instead of hiring a dozer. It has too many ledge rocks for a brush hog. They are currently bred to a corriente, so the first calf wont be worth much. But if I can get the cows for 250-300, I think it is worth a try. I am told there is a big difference between Mexican corrientes and American corrientes, and I dont know which these are. Any comments on experiences with corrientes would be appreciated.
 
I think they will not do as well as the longhorn but the first calves should sell very well for roping calves. Saw some 250lb calves sell for $300 a couple of weeks ago.
 
MoCows, you are correct. My longhorns weigh from 800-900 and wean calves from 550-725 out of a charolais bull. I keep them on the rougher pastures. This rough pasture I am talking about has weeds and sericea but has fescue underneath that I need to do something with or it will be killed out. There is a bunch of longhorns I will look at this weekend, also, but they are going to cost 400 or more. For these pastures, I need cows that need almost no care and will still do ok. With the economy worries, I am more concerned about not investing in high price cattle for this job
 
I visited a corriente farm for work a couple years ago. Guy had show corrientes and was still breeding a cow who was a former world champion. They are considerably smaller cattle than our LHs. There was a great show on RFD a while back about the breed. It was staggering to me how low they wanted their weights. I can't imagine them holding up a mature Char bull.
 
The brief time I have been on this board I haven't noticed anybody who raises Corriente cattle. That's who you probably need to consult with. I do know of some registered Corriente breeders who are crossbreeding with beef bulls on their bottom end cows because the market for their ropers is way down from a couple years ago. Suggest you go to www.corrientecattle.org, the membership directory, and contact a few breeders in your region. Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma all have lots of breeders.
 
Every year I go to the B&C sale in Brookfield , Mo and I see some Corrientes come through. Last fall a group of around 60 cows came through. Some had Charolais calves at side and some had black calves at side. These were well conditioned purebred cows. Almost all were either solid black or solid red and they were good looking cows. These were small, stocky cows. They reminded me of the old time Angus cows I used to see as a kid. They were blocky and were raising nice calves. I have never had any Corrientes but these looked like they would do well with a black or Char bull on them. They were going for around $500 to $550 as bred cows, pairs a little more. That's all I can say about them, no experience with them. They would do about as a good a job cleaning up a place as LH cows would. Low maintenance calf raisers that should pay for themselves pretty quick.
 
stocky":5lkv6jqa said:
I am going to go look at a herd of corrientes this weekend. I have in mind to do them the way I do longhorns, buy them cheap, dehorn them, and put a charolais bull with them. That works great on longhorns, but I have no experience with Corrientes. Will corrientes raise a good selling calf that weans to 500 lb or better out of a charolais bull? Has anyone had any experience with them? I am told they eat just about anything and I have a wild pasture that is full of sericea lespedeza and weeds that is choking out the fescue and I thought I might put them in there to clean that mess up instead of hiring a dozer. It has too many ledge rocks for a brush hog. They are currently bred to a corriente, so the first calf wont be worth much. But if I can get the cows for 250-300, I think it is worth a try. I am told there is a big difference between Mexican corrientes and American corrientes, and I dont know which these are. Any comments on experiences with corrientes would be appreciated.
you can buy longhorns for that,, id rather take my chance with them
 
Every corriente or corriente/LH that I've been around had a really bad disposition.
 
FarmGirl10":2qhofl7q said:
Every corriente or corriente/LH that I've been around had a really bad disposition.
Then they haven't been on the end of a rope enough. ;-)

Rustler9":2qhofl7q said:
Every year I go to the B&C sale in Brookfield , Mo and I see some Corrientes come through. Last fall a group of around 60 cows came through. Some had Charolais calves at side and some had black calves at side. These were well conditioned purebred cows. Almost all were either solid black or solid red and they were good looking cows. These were small, stocky cows. They reminded me of the old time Angus cows I used to see as a kid. They were blocky and were raising nice calves. I have never had any Corrientes but these looked like they would do well with a black or Char bull on them. They were going for around $500 to $550 as bred cows, pairs a little more. That's all I can say about them, no experience with them. They would do about as a good a job cleaning up a place as LH cows would. Low maintenance calf raisers that should pay for themselves pretty quick.

You can buy them for about half the price of a beef cow. Their calves will bring about half the $$ that a beef calf will bring. With luck, they will eat about half of the forage of a beef cow.
 
Thanks, everyone for your replies. This gives me alot more insight into the breed. I am going to go check them out tomorrow and see what ends up happening. Thanks again and I will let you know.
 
Sale Update: The Corriente cows were much bigger and better quality than I expected. They were 3-5 years old, some black and some red. They weighed from 800 lbs to just over 900 lbs each. 5 had calves averaging 300 lbs were bred back and 9 other cows were bred. 2 were open as 6 year olds. I went way over my thoughts on price and paid 450 for the bred cows, 525 for the pairs. The 2 open cows weighed 900 and brought 50 cents per pound. I bought 51 total head, including the 18 head of Corrientes. There are all very gentle and easy to work. I was surprised at how sharp the cows looked. The corrientes I had seen in the past were small and thin and were just basic enlarged brush goats. I paid 435-575 for longhorn pairs, depending on the size of the calves, and 560 for some 2nd period 6 year old 1200 lb mixed calf raisers and 650 for some oustanding heavy springer black baldie broken mouths that weighed around 1200. The better young springers were going for 1000 to 1150 and the better young pairs from 1000-1350. Everything was sky high. Thanks for the replies.
 

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