F-1 Breeding

[Dusty]

Hey Guys, tell me what you feel about F-1 Breeding and Bulls, Over the past 3 years i have had great success Using Purebred Charolais bulls to clean up my pure AI and ET angus herd. I have been getting 5-10 F-1 bulls yearly and this year actually flushed 6 Angus Females to Charolais Bulls. My customers who have been using the F-1 bulls came back to me this year and asked me to keep producing F-1's but two of the breeders expressed interest in Heat Wave sired bulls out of Charolais Donors and another breeder was wanting to know if I could produce 15 Meyer 734 x Angus bulls for his program.

I want to know breeders opinions about Heat Wave calves and Meyer 734 calves.. I know 734 semen is going to cost me a ton of money, but is there enough demand for me to market his daughters right away? Tell me what you guys think!!

 

[certherfbeef]

You are going to have calving issues with Heat Wave. But maybe not if the char cows are low BW.

I don't like 734 on angus cows. You run out of quarter. The angus doesn't have enough to go around and 734 (from my experience) doesn't add any quarter. The cow has to be thick to start with and all 734 does is up the value with his name in the pedigree.

If it were me, I'd talk to this feller and see if he might go with a 734 son. There are several good ones out there and the semen is alot less than $700 a unit. It will help your bottom line and still get accomplished what you need.

Use Heat Wave but be sure your recieps are elephants.

 

[iowahawkeyes]

HW is certainly a popular club calf bull. We had 90-95# BW. The good ones are really good, the bad ones are bad. Kind of like a lot of CC bulls out there. These were ET and really good angus moms.

Meyer 734 is so overrated. I don't believe that there are nearly as many real Meyer's out there either. They are framey, lack muscle and badhaired... If the breeder wants Meyers so bad, make him buy the semen.

 

[CowpokeJ]

What are they running the F1's on?

 

[Brandonm2]

Please define "bad haired"!

 

[iowahawkeyes]

Please define "bad haired"!

The club calf people all want a lot of hair and my experience with Meyer is that they have short straight hair.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

iowahawkeye & certherf - have you seen many 3C Macho calves (734 son)? Thinking about using him on a few of my cows including a few of my Macho daughters (2nd calf heifers).

 

[Aero]

you can contract with them to breed what they want.

agree on what you will breed and how many, then agree on a price for the pick of the bulls from the breeding plus semen costs. make them pay for the semen upfront and they will understand more of what goes into it.

they might not agree to it, but would reduce your risk if you can come to an agreement.

 

[iowahawkeyes]

iowahawkeye & certherf - have you seen many 3C Macho calves (734 son)? Thinking about using him on a few of my cows including a few of my Macho daughters (2nd calf heifers).

No I haven't, sorry

 

[Brandonm2]

Please define "bad haired"!

The club calf people all want a lot of hair and my experience with Meyer is that they have short straight hair.

I hear what you are saying and I can understand your point; but I would really cringe if I ever heard a high school judging team member state something like: 'I had too place bull 2 at the bottom of todays class of 24 month old Charolais bulls because despite his substance, volume, length, depth, thickness, good skeletal structure, and impressive muscle expression throughout he has the baddest hair in todays class.'

At least in theory, we are raising beef not beauty contestants.

 

[Dusty]

you can contract with them to breed what they want.

agree on what you will breed and how many, then agree on a price for the pick of the bulls from the breeding plus semen costs. make them pay for the semen upfront and they will understand more of what goes into it.

they might not agree to it, but would reduce your risk if you can come to an agreement.

All Contract bulls are done in a similiar matter as you described, they know the costs going into the agreement!! I just have to produce them

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Brandonm2
"Generally" the "bad hair" issue is a selling point. With "good hair" you can cover up bad points on the animal.
I've never seen a judge use hair as an issue.
I think steers should be shaved within 1/4 inch of hide, but, boy oh boy, would that upset the "clubbies".
I have to admit that those animals with the good hair that people spend a lifetime of hours on - really do look good. I drool over them & would like mine to look that fancy, but I'm not willing to take the time - or leave that much hair on anything I have (plus, lets get real, Simmental are known for "bad hair" - although the blacks are getting real good).
We keep it short so we can blow & show.