regolith
Well-known member
Would you use them?
I'm pretty new to this, and I've been using LIC bulls selected on their breeding values, all of which would have been 'first proof' - 60 - 80 daughters. Even in only three years I've seen bulls turn up with a re-proof completely different from the initial one, and most of them seem to be 'flash-in-the-pan' that disappear after a year or two and are never heard of again.
I've been thinking for a while I ought to be looking more at older bulls, but haven't been too enthused by any currently being offered by the two major NZ breeding companies. So I think it'll take time and learn from experience and then follow up on bulls that work - I've found you can ask LIC for bulls that aren't catalogued even if they've been culled.
The heifers from bulls I picked three years ago are mostly calved now. Noontime http://www.lic.co.nz/lic_TOP_Informatio ... info_id=13 has been a stayer, now with a 99% reliability on his proof and I used him two years running. Based on his proof today I wouldn't pick him. His daughters are uniformly small with tiny neat udders - not very milky.
Red Ribbon http://www.lic.co.nz/print_bull.cfm?bull_id=301031 started with a breeding worth equivalent to the heifers I was using him on, and improved by a few points, though still well behind most of the other bulls marketed. He's vanished from the catalogues now. I used him as an udder improver and while his daughters don't have the perfect udders that were his main strength, I like every one of the girls. I only need to look at who their mothers are to see how good he is - there isn't a bad udder among them. Most of the dams had such poor udders I shouldn't have been breeding from them at all.
I used some of the last straws available from Lynbrook Pan Taylor, and his proof crashed dramatically shortly after. I have six of his daughters, all nice heifers but two of them have udder issues - one blind quarter, the other poorly shaped.
Both Meridian and Nighthawk achieved a quiet decline over the last couple of years - Meridian http://www.lic.co.nz/lic_Sire_Lineup.cf ... info_id=12 is still at the back of the catalogue. Nighthawk had an exceptional calving ease BV and I got annoyed at LIC because he was anything but when used over my Jerseys, but the calving difficulty only shifted a fraction upwards on re-proof. I like all of his daughters - even 191 who is out of a cow I culled for a myriad of issues. Meridian gave me two daughters and about twelve bull calves. Still waiting for one to calve, the other is strong and milky.
As for the few heifers resulting from a 'bull of the day' mating when my Angus bull went lame - better not to mention them. Both sires have been stayers, still at the top of the lists. 196 (Nevvy daughter) calved at the beginning of the week and we're still leg-roping her every milking.
I'm pretty new to this, and I've been using LIC bulls selected on their breeding values, all of which would have been 'first proof' - 60 - 80 daughters. Even in only three years I've seen bulls turn up with a re-proof completely different from the initial one, and most of them seem to be 'flash-in-the-pan' that disappear after a year or two and are never heard of again.
I've been thinking for a while I ought to be looking more at older bulls, but haven't been too enthused by any currently being offered by the two major NZ breeding companies. So I think it'll take time and learn from experience and then follow up on bulls that work - I've found you can ask LIC for bulls that aren't catalogued even if they've been culled.
The heifers from bulls I picked three years ago are mostly calved now. Noontime http://www.lic.co.nz/lic_TOP_Informatio ... info_id=13 has been a stayer, now with a 99% reliability on his proof and I used him two years running. Based on his proof today I wouldn't pick him. His daughters are uniformly small with tiny neat udders - not very milky.
Red Ribbon http://www.lic.co.nz/print_bull.cfm?bull_id=301031 started with a breeding worth equivalent to the heifers I was using him on, and improved by a few points, though still well behind most of the other bulls marketed. He's vanished from the catalogues now. I used him as an udder improver and while his daughters don't have the perfect udders that were his main strength, I like every one of the girls. I only need to look at who their mothers are to see how good he is - there isn't a bad udder among them. Most of the dams had such poor udders I shouldn't have been breeding from them at all.
I used some of the last straws available from Lynbrook Pan Taylor, and his proof crashed dramatically shortly after. I have six of his daughters, all nice heifers but two of them have udder issues - one blind quarter, the other poorly shaped.
Both Meridian and Nighthawk achieved a quiet decline over the last couple of years - Meridian http://www.lic.co.nz/lic_Sire_Lineup.cf ... info_id=12 is still at the back of the catalogue. Nighthawk had an exceptional calving ease BV and I got annoyed at LIC because he was anything but when used over my Jerseys, but the calving difficulty only shifted a fraction upwards on re-proof. I like all of his daughters - even 191 who is out of a cow I culled for a myriad of issues. Meridian gave me two daughters and about twelve bull calves. Still waiting for one to calve, the other is strong and milky.
As for the few heifers resulting from a 'bull of the day' mating when my Angus bull went lame - better not to mention them. Both sires have been stayers, still at the top of the lists. 196 (Nevvy daughter) calved at the beginning of the week and we're still leg-roping her every milking.
