Good feet in the Angus Breed

[tnfarmboy67]

I'm just getting started in Registered Black Angus and the biggest problem I am having is finding Angus Cows with good feet.
What line of angus have the best Feet?

 

[elkwc]

I've seen a lot of bad feet also in my search for cows and bulls over the last two years. One reason why I have decided not to bid on any on the internet again unless I have looked at them in person. It seems worse with the Angus. I had never noticed that as an issue before. Curly toes, split toes and just plain bad feet

 

[Bigfoot]

Brings back memories of Traveler.

 

[Ebenezer]

Look at hooves, leg angle and stride length and you will recognize issues in structure and bone angle are bigger than just hooves for the breed. I think the swayback issue is probably tied to incorrect structure. I find that to be quite unattractive no matter the pedigree or the hype.

 

[angus9259]

As an angus breeder I have to agree that feet are a challenge. I I've never had another pure bred animal so I can't compare to other breeds.

They also seem to "move" with age. Good feet can go bad as a calf matures and bad feet can seem to straighten up.

Worse feet I ever got was from GDAR Game Day. Best feet for me have been thunder. I also wonder if "feet" is something the show folks have on the "commercial" folks. I've bought a number of bulls from Bill Wilson at Wilson Cattle Co in Cloverdale IN always seems to have consistently good feet. I generally consider him a "show cattle" guy I guess.

 

[wbvs58]

This thread shows me how the allegiencies have changed on CT. A couple of years ago a thread like this would be up to several pages by now with people from other breeds jumping in and sinking the boot into Angus and saying how bad they all are. I thought the responses to date have been very polite. Well done.
Ken

 

[shortybreeder]

This thread shows me how the allegiencies have changed on CT. A couple of years ago a thread like this would be up to several pages by now with people from other breeds jumping in and sinking the boot into Angus and saying how bad they all are. I thought the responses to date have been very polite. Well done.
Ken

I think most of the non Angus people have left, with few individual representatives of other breeds left.
I don't have much experience with purebred Angus, although I will say we've used a bit of Rito, and Net Worth, and both have cleaned up the nasty feet in our dairy cattle. Are they perfect? No, but their holsteinX dams sure were nightmares.

 

[gizmom]

The Angus breed does have some issues with feet. We have been culling hard for feet for several years. The association is trying to get a handle on the foot issue they now have a foot scoring system in place where they can develop EPD's on feet. It will not be a perfect system, for one in a perfect world everyone turning in data will be 100% honest unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world. The attached link is the pdf of the scoring system that has been adopted by the association:
http://www.angus.org/performance/footsc ... poster.pdf

I don't want to say that any line is absolutely safe as far as foot issues, as soon as I do then one will show up with bad feet. The truth is you have to be diligent cull when you find bad feet the only way to solve the issue is to trim their feet right behind the ears.

gizmom

 

[Lucky_P]

I don't know anything about feet... couldn't look at two and tell you 'this one's better than that one', but I've certainly been 'warned off of' certain bulls because of known or perceived foot issues.
A trusted (recently deceased) friend, who was a long-time Angus breeder, but grew up with Shorthorns, and spent his professional career mainly working with beef cattle of all breeds - including a lengthy stint at a major bull stud back in the 70s-80s... recommended to me... CRA Bextor and Conneally Counselor... as Angus bulls that would sire good foot/leg structure.
He told me, shortly before he passed in 2014, that they'd bred at least one cow (many more, most years) to Bextor every year since he came on the market.

 

[tnfarmboy67]

I wish some of the Angus breeders on here from Australia would tell us how their foot scoreing system is working. And what bulls have the best foot epd's.

 

[wildcat2154]

As far as a certain line of cattle, I usually start by visually checking the feet on the animal, then check pedigree for bulls who sire good or bad feet.

Gizmom is right on, as soon as you say a line is safe a bad will show up. So just take it case by case. Start to study what bulls sire good and bad feet and cull anything that has bad feet.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Who has a set of good photos of feet from multiple angles so we can learn?

 

[wbvs58]

I wish some of the Angus breeders on here from Australia would tell us how their foot scoreing system is working. And what bulls have the best foot epd's.

I have not had any trouble with feet in my registered Angus cattle. I am spoilt because my country is basically a course sandy granite with lots of rock and my cattle don't have to stand around knee deep in mud in lots in winter like many of yours do and I can understand how important feet structure would be to you. I have had a couple of my commercial cows with foot issues in the past but since I have moved to all registered cattle I have not seen a problem that I have recognised but no doubt someone with your skills farmboy would find some problems. Having got my foundation cows from the one herd that pays a lot of attention to structural scoring and has all sale bulls and replacement heifers scored by an independant certified assessor who pays a lot of attention to feet probably helps.
As far as ebvs for feet, no we do not have any but most of the larger seed stock herds have structural scoring done and that is displayed under the ebvs in the sale catalogues.
I could not make any bull recommendations for you farmboy as I don't get to see a wide enough sample. I have seen posts on CT here when someone will bad mouth a bull from what someone told them who got told by someone else. Personally I only take notice of what I have seen or experienced and am a lot better off for that. I was once told believe nothing of what you hear and half of what you see and I think you would be well advised to follow the same advice farmboy. Sorry I can't help you.

Ken

 

[tnfarmboy67]

Ken thanks for the reply. I was hoping that since the Angus breeders in Australia have a head start on feet EPDs (ebvs) that some of them might chime in with what line of Angus are haveing the best EBVs scores.

 

[UG]

One of the challenges I have found as discussing feet issues with Angus breeders, is that one breeder will tell me that a certain bull frequently sires progeny with poor feet and the next Angus breeder I will talk to will claim that he has had dozen of animals out of the same bull and all of the progeny had good feet.

A couple bulls that have a reputation for siring good feet are Nichols Extra K205 (ABS) and Connealy Thunder (Genex). Thunder semen is in tight supply, but I have heard similar comments about good feet with the Thunder sons at Select Sires. Also, I don't recall anyone complaining about feet out of Final Answer and his many sons and grandsons.