ET calves and birthweights

[BRG]

I have 8 full brothers from our ET program. They are all out of our LMG Dynette 902 cow, she is on our website if you want to take a look at her http://www.gillredangus.com on the females page and the sire is Hammel Run Cloud 525. We purchased Run Cloud several years back as a calving ease bull to use on our heifers, and he did a great job. Anyway, his daughters are just awesome producers and we only have a few straws of semen left on him. So we flushed her to him and got the following bull calves. I am just curious what everyones thoughts are of the weights. The heaviest calf she has ever had before until now was 92 lbs, and he was out of RBJR Advance A709, who is a proven heavier birth weight bull. With this type of info and a proven track record. Would the high birth weight on the one keep you from buying him. I know it is due to his recip who is half continental. His ET mates are all respectable as well. Here they are:
BW: 79 WW 739
BW: 78 WW 775
BW: 89 WW 708
BW: 94 WW 780
BW: 83 WW 700
BW: 78 WW 721
BW: 106 WW 817
BW: 81 WW 739

For anyone wanting the pedigree and EPds of these guys. here are one of the bulls:
http://old.redangus.org/cgi-bin/extped.4ge?1124910

It would not stop me, as we have already purchased a bull like this.

Thanks,
Bryan

 

[MikeC]

If the recips were multi breeds, these numbers are about as consistent as I have ever seen.

 

[Badlands]

It would depend on if he still exceeded his mates by a large margin at YW, and if I had to "market" the bull ;-) .

If he did, then I would not buy him as his performance is due to genetics as well as the recip dam. If his YW exceeds his contemporaries by a wide margin at YW, it is due to his genetics, so his EPD would come up as he is proven.

The Continental recip added over 23 pounds to his BW compared to the average of the other calves and 70 pounds to his WW. I would expect a Continental cow to add about 4% to BW and 5% to WW. In this case, the cow added 27% to BW and 9% to WW. I would believe she added more to BW than WW.

If you give us the YW, I can build a regression equation to predict his expected performance from these numbers. Anything very much over the expectation, would suggest he is a "bigger" bull genetically.


If his ADG is higher than average and his YW is more than about 50 pounds heavier than his brothers, it would suggest to me that he is a "bigger" bull genetically.

His early performance backs up your claim that his Continental influenced dam added BW. He is coming back into line for WW, and if he comes farther back toward the middle for YW, then I could conclude that he is indeed genetically similar to the other calves.



Badlands

 

[Badlands]

Dang BRG, I was hoping you would post the YW numbers.

I'd be glad to make a statistical case for you based on the numbers. It is looking pretty good for the bull so far. He started out big, but he is coming into line for WW. If he keeps on that path, you would have a strong case to "defend" him with.


Badlands

 

[BRG]

To be honest, I don't have them in hand. Since we didn't put up a stick of hay last summer, we had to send all the calves away for the winter. They weighed them, but they have not gotten it to me yet. When I get it, I will post it for you.

 

[Victoria]

Wouldn't bother me at all if I were buying him commercially.

 

[Badlands]

Thanks BRG.

I'm interested in how they work out.

There are several cases of bulls of different breeds coming from the same flush or being full brothers with far different EPD.

If the BW, WW, and YW are heritable, and each bulls genetic contribute, then is is reasonable to see some differences in spite of what cow raised them.


Badlands

 

[SEC]

I wouldn't worry about the bwt on a recip at all. There are many factors to a bwt without a recip let alone with one. The rest of the calves are in line. Funny thing is, he might be the bull who ends up siring calves with the lightest bwt.

IF purebred guys are going to show commercial guys anything it would be that they aren't afraid of a bull over 100lbs and either should they.

IF the bull happens to consistently sire calves that heavy, his purebred marketing ability has been limited. More times than not do sires throw calves as big as what they are when it comes to 100lb bwts. It would be worse IMO to have a sire throw calves from 70lbs to 120lbs, that is all over the board.

 

[Brandonm2]

I am more paranoid than most people. If I had eight flushmates to pick from I wouldn't look at the one with the 107 pound birth weight. In my mind that says automatic STEER every time. I can't defend that judgement in a recipient; but I don't buy bulls with 100++ pound actual birth weights or with sub 500 pound weaning weights. The other calves all have respectable (heck excellent) numbers, the same pedigree, and the same EPDs. Picking a good one out of that crew shouldn't be difficult. Somebody who is less cautious than me probably will buy him.

 

[SEC]

Being the devils advocate here's another scenario.

What if BRG submits that bwt as 97lbs. He's still heavier bwt but it's not above that barrier that you talk about. People being discriminatory to bwts over 100 lbs just forces the dishonest breeder to submit a lower bwt.

I know guys that do it. If you were to do a bell curve on their bwts it would look pretty funny.