Critique this bull calf

[Brute 23]

@Brute 23, is this still a bull? If so, are you thinking of using him for breeding? For a steer, I don't see a thing wrong with him. I'd love to have a pasture full like him. IMO, there isn;t a better brood cow than an F1 Braford. Do you have any calves like this, by an Angus bull? Or, do you have any F1 Brangus that you breed to Hereford bulls?

Yes he is still a bull.

I am getting pressure to try to raise a bull and start thinking about running a registered herd, neither if which I am crazy about. So basically I'm trying to make a plan I can get behind while mitigating the pia factor.

This bull calf has caught my eye from a young age and is the 3/4 mix I would need to breed back to 10, 2nd calf F1 Brafords we raised, with the hopes of making Brafords. The bull calf's Hereford and Brahman background is of no relation F1s Hereford and Brahman background.

I'm very mixed because I always like to succeed at what I do but I also don't want to perpetuate the idea that we can just start grabbing stuff from the pasture and breeding it. Good thing is if it goes good it will be good... if it goes bad... it will still be good.

The registered deal is a whole nother topic..

Yes we have black motts that have either F1 Braford or Brangus moms with Angus or Hereford dads. They make really good, easy to handle, mommas. I'm more excited about some red motts we have coming up. We have heifer mates to this bull that are 3/4 Hereford 1/4 Brahman.

 

[Warren Allison]

Yes he is still a bull.

I am getting pressure to try to raise a bull and start thinking about running a registered herd, neither if which I am crazy about. So basically I'm trying to make a plan I can get behind while mitigating the pia factor.

This bull calf has caught my eye from a young age and is the 3/4 mix I would need to breed back to 10, 2nd calf F1 Brafords we raised, with the hopes of making Brafords. The bull calf's Hereford and Brahman background is of no relation F1s Hereford and Brahman background.

I'm very mixed because I always like to succeed at what I do but I also don't want to perpetuate the idea that we can just start grabbing stuff from the pasture and breeding it. Good thing is if it goes good it will be good... if it goes bad... it will still be good.

The registered deal is a whole nother topic..

Yes we have black motts that have either F1 Braford or Brangus moms with Angus or Hereford dads. They make really good, easy to handle, mommas. I'm more excited about some red motts we have coming up. We have heifer mates to this bull that are 3/4 Hereford 1/4 Brahman.

Ok, so you are thinking of raising your own registered Brafords? Then yeah, you will need 3/4ths Herefords to breed to 1/2 Herefords. This bull might not be 100% perfect, but he is a damn nice looking calf. And, I am sure those 10 F1' cows you want to breed to him are 10 of the best you have. Are you bringing along an F1 bull to breed to your 3/4ths Her and 1/4 Brahma heifers?

 

[Brute 23]

Ok, so you are thinking of raising your own registered Brafords? Then yeah, you will need 3/4ths Herefords to breed to 1/2 Herefords. This bull might not be 100% perfect, but he is a damn nice looking calf. And, I am sure those 10 F1' cows you want to breed to him are 10 of the best you have. Are you bringing along an F1 bull to breed to your 3/4ths Her and 1/4 Brahma heifers?

Two separate deals. I'm not trying to make registered Brafords, just Brafords. With this deal I'm trying to show him that just because animals look good doesnt mean they always have the genetic background to keep passing that on as a herd sire.

Which rolls the registered deal. I think he is giving me more credit than I deserve. That is a different level when your start talking about picking bulls... to make bulls.

Not sure what breed we will do if we start a registered herd... leaning Hereford at the moment.

 

[Ky hills]

@Brute 23 i kept back a bull calf bred like yours 3/4 Hereford 1/4 Brahman got some good calves from him. I'm doing more home raised bulls in recent years and this year all have been. One is a son of the aforementioned Braford bull and a Simangus cow. Thought goes into the selection process and a lot of factors should be taken into consideration. We usually keep back some heifers, so the quality of the bull's dam are a major factor. It's a tough balance to try to get growth on the calves yet keep the mature size of the females fairly moderate. I've found that when buying bulls or using AI it's often hard to get a clear and complete assessment of the cows in the bulls pedigree and the details of the backstory behind them. In my own herd, I know the history of the cows.

 

[Brute 23]

We will see what happens. I don't mind this deal on a small scale because it is kind of a litmus test on your cattle.

Buying the Brahmans and producing our own F1s has gone well so now I think some of this has spun off from that. He is thinking , why cant we produce the other side too?

I feel my own hypocrisy because I'm a firm believer in raising your own cows but I'm the complete opposite on bulls. I think being able to walk up and buy these great bulls from professionals as fast as you can point your finger and put them to work is the best thing since sliced bred. He did call me out on that one and I laughed and said I'd have to do some more thinking on it and get back to him.

 

[Ky hills]

We will see what happens. I don't mind this deal on a small scale because it is kind of a litmus test on your cattle.

Buying the Brahmans and producing our own F1s has gone well so now I think some of this has spun off from that. He is thinking , why cant we produce the other side too?

I feel my own hypocrisy because I'm a firm believer in raising your own cows but I'm the complete opposite on bulls. I think being able to walk up and buy these great bulls from professionals as fast as you can point your finger and put them to work is the best thing since sliced bred. He did call me out on that one and I laughed and said I'd have to do some more thinking on it and get back to him.

I had always thought that too, but then got to realizing that these professionals may not always be any better at it than I am. The most expensive bull I've bought, came from a big local seedstock farm and I knew the manager pretty well. The bull I wanted was well out of my price range so settled on the next one that was still should have been out of my range. He kept building up what a good cow he was out of so I was sold. Turns out that was one of the sorriest bulls I've ever had. After that I started experimenting with raising some bulls.

 

[Warren Allison]

We will see what happens. I don't mind this deal on a small scale because it is kind of a litmus test on your cattle.

Buying the Brahmans and producing our own F1s has gone well so now I think some of this has spun off from that. He is thinking , why cant we produce the other side too?

I feel my own hypocrisy because I'm a firm believer in raising your own cows but I'm the complete opposite on bulls. I think being able to walk up and buy these great bulls from professionals as fast as you can point your finger and put them to work is the best thing since sliced bred. He did call me out on that one and I laughed and said I'd have to do some more thinking on it and get back to him.

I believe in using cross bred cows ....like say a black baldy, from purebred Angus and Herford ....in your commercial herd. Breeding them back to a purebred bull of a third breed, will produce mighty fine calves. But I would never use a cross bred bull. IMO, leaving a cross bred, or even a grade "purebred" bull intact, is as ridiculous as leaving a grade stallion intact. But, in developing the "new" breeds....like Brangus, Braford, Black Hereford, Santa Gertrudis, etc, they had to use a cross bred bull to get the 5/8 to 3/8ths mixture in order to stabilize the type of the new breed. So, you HAVE to pick out your best 1/2 by 1/2 or 3/4 by 1/4 cross bred bulls to use in the development stage of what you want to do. . But, when these breeds were being developed, the breeders used the best of the best of purebred registered stock. So, you know what you have, and what to expect, with these 1/2 or 3/4 cross breds. What the developers of these breeds have done, like what you are doing, is a far cry from people I see on here, with all grade, unknown crossbred cows, deciding to raise a bull calf to be a sire...with unknown pedigree, to be a herd sire. because they thought he "looked good" as a calf.

You are definitely onto something that will make money. There is a very viable market for F1 Braford cows and commercial Braford cows. at least in the southern most parts of the southeast. I have been looking for 150 2nd to 4th calf cows like these for a client of mine for a few months now, and they aren't easy to find down here. He intends to breed these to Angus, Brangus or Ultrablack bulls, which unquestionably would produce both top dollar steers and replacement heifers. These cows are so hard to find in fact, that I have been exploring with him, the possibility of just buying Brahma cows and HIM producing F1 Brafords. The steers of course, won't bring what the black steers would, but the F1 Braford heifers would sell for as much or more than the Angus x Braford heifers would.