Explain Bulls......

[Ohio Cowboy]

Anyone feel like explaining all the ins and outs of choosing a bull. Things like epd's, fertility and all the others. If you have test results feel free to post them so we can see and learn from them. Thanks...

 

[Calhoun Farm]

I'm still a newb, but for me I start at the feet and go up. I like to see a wide butt, sound hip, flat back, a little hump (muscle) in the neck and masculinity. On epd's anything above breed avg is good for me. My current bull is a heifer bull, his bw is -.9

 

[3waycross]

I'm still a newb, but for me I start at the feet and go up. I like to see a wide butt, sound hip, flat back, a little hump (muscle) in the neck and masculinity. On epd's anything above breed avg is good for me. My current bull is a heifer bull, his bw is -.9

No offense and I really mean that, but the bull you posted does not reflect a lot of those qualities. Especially the butt part.

BTW OP above breed avg is not always a good thing. In BW and milk it can be a very bad thing.

 

[Jake]

Anyone feel like explaining all the ins and outs of choosing a bull. Things like epd's, fertility and all the others. If you have test results feel free to post them so we can see and learn from them. Thanks...

I like to see a bulls mother and grandmother if possible and see if I can live with cows that look like her. From there I try to weed out the extremes in EPDs both high and low and move onto a satisfactory phenotype. Every person is going to prioritize different things over others so knowing what your goals for the bull are is most important

 

[Taurus]

Ditto to the two last posts above. I will add one more thing that you can check his registration paper to see if he is homozygous polled or homozygous black. Few people do not check for that.

 

[3waycross]

Ditto to the two last posts above. I will add one more thing that you can check his registration paper to see if he is homozygous polled or homozygous black. Few people do not check for that.

Angus should ALL be homo black. I don't know about other breeds but in Gelbvieh the only animals that will show it on the papers are those that have been tested for it, and it has been submitted to the breed assn. Such as a bull that is certified for AI.

 

[Lucky_P]

3-way,
There are still some registered Angus that are red-gene carriers - and even some that carry the 'wild-color' gene. Will agree that the vast majority are homo black, but not all.

http://www.angus.org/pub/GeneticConditions.aspx

 

[backhoeboogie]

Smooth shoulders. Shaped like a white tailed deer was how it was explained to me years back. First thing I look at. Go on from there.

Mortality. I like a high survival rate.

 

[Taurus]

Ditto to the two last posts above. I will add one more thing that you can check his registration paper to see if he is homozygous polled or homozygous black. Few people do not check for that.

Angus should ALL be homo black. I don't know about other breeds but in Gelbvieh the only animals that will show it on the papers are those that have been tested for it, and it has been submitted to the breed assn. Such as a bull that is certified for AI.

But I am talking about breeds in general, not just Angus. Plenty of registered black Angus bulls are heterozygous. Few black simmentals are horned and spotting gene carrier. Same thing with Horned and polled Herefords. Just few examples.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

I strictly go by the price.

 

[Calhoun Farm]

I strictly go by the price.

I agree, I got the best I could find/afford.

 

[SPH]

First off you need to determine what your breeding goals are because it may influence what you find most important in a bull. Are you breeding for market/carcass animals or replacement females and bulls? That right there is going to determine a lot of what phenotype traits you are going to place importance on. While we value EPD's they are not the sole determination to selecting a bull but you can't completely ignore things with them too, especially when they are in the extremes. A bull should pass your eye test, structurally sound and moves well because if you have bad feet and legs not only is that bull probably not going to hold up over time but his progeny is probably going to have the same structural flaws. I think some people tend to get too caught up in how much muscling and size a bull has they may sometimes look past some structural flaws trying to breed with the hopes of weaning a few more pounds.

All that being said, we're a cow/calf operation so our goals are breeding replacement females and bull prospects so some of the carcass traits aren't as high on our list of criteria. First and foremost birth weights are very important to us. Getting a healthy live calf and not having to assist the cow with calving is a must because you can throw everything else out the window if you are having calving issues and not getting live calves. A bull has to be OK to use on heifers and we want his sons to have good calving ease traits as well as that makes them more marketable for sale. We'll look at his actual birth weight as well as his BW and CE EPD's and being that we breed registered purebreds we have the luxury of going through his performance pedigree to see if there are any bloodlines or animals in his pedigree that concern us and the performance records of animals in it as well. Next we are looking for phenotype in regards to maternal traits. We like our females long with good depth of rib with some thickness to them. We aim for moderate framed cattle so nothing too small or large of frame size, both extremes can have their drawbacks. And milk and growth traits which sometimes can be hard to get a good read on without being able to see what a bull's dam looks like and how her udder is. We want good udder structure with adequate milk, there is a thing as too much milk as a cow will use up so much energy milking it makes her harder to breed back and keep up her condition while she is nursing a calf.

And last but not least don't buy a bull that hasn't had a BSE. You want to make sure he's fertile and sound for breeding. Every bull we sell has a BSE before he leaves the farm as well as our herd bull gets one before each breeding season. You want to be confident that the bull is ready to breed cows, the last thing you want is to find out he was shooting blanks all summer and you have a bunch of open cows. Strange things can happen while a bull is not working the pasture, he can get injured and you may not even know it which is why we are big believers in making sure bulls get annual BSE's as we've heard enough bad stories from other guys that thought "well he got everything bred last season so didn't think he'd have any problems the next year."

 

[3waycross]

3-way,
There are still some registered Angus that are red-gene carriers - and even some that carry the 'wild-color' gene. Will agree that the vast majority are homo black, but not all.

http://www.angus.org/pub/GeneticConditions.aspx

FWIW they are NOT tested as part of any sale that I know of. It is just assumed. The incidence of red calves born to reg angus cows has to be less than 1/10 of 1%.