Culling and replacing

[Brute 23]

You buy cattle for 2 reasons, your market and your environment. If you justified them with any other reason it probably cost you money.

 

[Davemk]

A lot of the Shorthorns get overly fat and thus the yield grade drops making them worth less when paid on the grid. A percentage of the frozen ear and tail calves have other internal and foot injuries caused by the cold. Thus they have more sick or lame calves both which cost the feedlot money. In both cases it is not 100% but enough to make it noticeable to the feedlots so they don't want them or buy at a discounted price. And here is see those Holstein cross calves get a discount right with the Longhorn or Correntie crosses.

Not our experience with shorthorns in the feedlots. Of course we use Canadian shorthorn genetics and not American show genetics. The biggest problem is they don't qualify for cab when they are roan like my heifer above. The rest of our calves with her breeding are black. Heck we have 5/8 shorthorns that are pure black. The mistake made with her was not using a homozygous black Sim bull.

 

[puzzled in oregon]

I always thought the Hereford x Shorthorn made a durable cow.

 

[Silver]

I always thought the Hereford x Shorthorn made a durable cow.

I've heard that. But they are a tough sell up here.

 

[Travlr]

Back in the sixties there was a fad in the beef industry that a lot of people enjoyed... "baby beef". Maybe it was a way to market some of the old genetically tiny beef cattle left around from the forties. But a lot of people liked smaller cuts and wanted finished carcasses at lighter weights. Angus supplied a lot of that kind of beef because they finished early. So did shorthorn. Some Hereford was in it too. I've always appreciated easy keepers that would finish on grass at 1000 pounds. That's what I look for when I fill my own freezer. Of course I still grain them lightly for a couple of months because I think it affects the flavor.

All breeds have changed over time. And tastes have changed too. Personally, if the beef industry wasn't skewed to the dark side with CAB, and buyers would purchase based on quality instead of color, I'd prefer to use shorthorn in a breeding program. I like them a lot.

 

[bird dog]

If you have a buyer buying for himself for his own feed yard, then they will scoop up these off colored, no tailed, ugly type calves. But that's seldom how it works. The buyers have a order for some type of calf and they can't vary from that or they might lose their customer. They are not spending their own money.

The local sale barn I like does the seller a favor by sorting off these animals into the pens that sell before the #1 calves. Buyers that can or want to buy these types know to be there before that. These "ranny" calves is where I buy some to try and turn the #2 or worse into # 1 1/2's. Some do well with time and better nutrition. Some don't.
The "ranny pen will have these shorthorns as well as corriente's, longhorns, cripples, sick calves, pink eye's, speckled parks and everything else that buyers can't buy. Even overly fat show calves come with this bunch. There is a large group of hispanics that buy some a lot of these animals so they sell fairly well and if you are selling one that is questionable, you want it in the ranny pen.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

My statement was directed at Jeanne.
You gotta use what the market makes available to you.

I don't go out of my way to buy CE bull's semen. Occasionally, I use one, but they are growth bulls.
Probably 95% of my bull calves are sold to commercial breeders. I sure hate saying this....but, I have NEVER had a customer contact me about any calving difficulties. And I have mostly repeat customers.
I had orders for 11 bull calves BEFORE I started calving. That's a lot for my small herd.
I only fulfilled 8 of the orders.
So, must be SOME Simmentals are easy calving. I castrate anything over 100# at birth. So, yes, I sell a lot of 90+ BW bull calves.