got our cows

[geish]

We're new to cows, but finally bought some since we have a big enough land (45 acres) which we also bought months ago. We bought all eight for $5k. We're learning more and more every day. I'm wondering what breed these are. I'm sure they're mixed, but what are they predominantly; if it's at all possible to tell. Also, was $5,000 a good price. We were told that most of the cows are pregnant. I'm sure that makes a difference in the price. He kept the bull.

We bought it from a very nice gentleman who we were leasing our land to. We finally decided to take care of the cows ourselves. I guess our next step would be to got to the feed store and find out what to feed these cows. I also need to do some more shredding. Any more advice would be appreciated. My concern in the future is what bull to get. If we keep all the calves and breed them to the bull we get, I hear first time mothers can have calving problems. I guess I'll do more research on this board.
Thank ya'll for all the help. I love this message board.

 

[certherfbeef]

Good looking cattle. That orange heifer is pretty fancy.
You might have some udder problems with that herf down the road though. I only say that based on what I can see of her teats.

 

[geish]

Learning already. I guess I need to look for some pictures of what a good teat and a bad teat looks like.

I'll look through that book by Heather Thomas that ya'll recommended a while back.

All I know is the cows were bred to a registered Limousin that was raised on our land some time ago before we bought the land.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I'll give it a shot.
Calf - Simmental X Red Angus
2nd - straight Brahman
3rd Hereford
4th Hereford X Charolais or Simm
5th Red Angus
6th Charolais X
7th Hereford X Brahman
8th Charolais X
All the cattle (except the calf) appear to be mature cows, so they should be OK calving to the Limo bull.
Next year's breeding bull should be easier calving (or AI all the heifers you keep).

 

[Arnold Ziffle]

I reckon its been a good while since most of these gals were heifers. Sort of a hodge podge group of commercial cattle -- some Brahma, Hereford, Simmie, etc. influence. But without knowing anything more about them, their health, teeth, etc. at an average price of $625 per head I'd say you did pretty well for yourself. Especially if the guy didn't cherry pick what he sold you and what he took with him. Congrats to you and enjoy them --- and then start working on killing out that vegetation that the cattle won't eat. You won't have far to haul your cows & calves at sale time -- can take them to the Columbus Livestock Auction holding pens right there in Needville.

 

[Arnold Ziffle]

oops -- was typing while Jean posted.

If you need a bull you might consider talking to Glen Schroeder over at the holding pens for some local referrals, or ask some of the other local ranchers. There should be some black Angus breeders by the name of Stavihoha pretty near you if that's the route you choose to go.

 

[VanC]

Also in my personal opinion you could not go wrong with one of 4 types of bulls.

1. Black Angus
2. Gelbvieh
3. Balancer (Gelbvieh by angus cross)
4. Salers

If you get one that is homozygous black then ever calf will be black. Also if he is homozygous polled you will not have horns or scurs on any of the calves.

Looks like some Charolais in a couple of them, which could throw a gray calf if bred to a black bull. But that would be OK too in most areas. All in all, a good looking bunch, especially for the price.

 

[cfpinz]

Personally I like 12 and 14 the best. 12 (red angus) looks like a nice productive little cow all around. 14 doesn't have much muscle to her but if you breed her to a well muscled bull, I'll bet she'll wean off the heaviest calf out of the group, based on her frame and "milk parlor". The hereford above these two carries her weight well but I wouldn't look for her to have an abundance of milk. Just my thoughts...Oh, and for the money, you could have done a heck of a lot worse. Good Luck

cfpinz

 

[geish]

How old are these heifers? If they are first calf heifers say around 2 years old breeding them to a limo bull was probably a mistake.

They're not heifers. They've been bred before. I just don't know their exact age.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Not a bad set of average cattle for salebarn price. But here we go again why didn't you research owning cattle and pasture management before buying the cows?

 

[geish]

Sounds like Angus will be the bull.

I really want to get to a point to where I can tell what breeds the cows are. I'll probably keep alternating between Anguses and some other breed from now on; maybe Gelbvieh as some of you metioned. From what TurnThatCow's showed me, they come out beautiful.

These cows have been on our land for about three months. These were the only cows on there; the owner didn't pick and choose. He only took his bull out which was a Limousin. Nice looking bull. It's the sire to the calf in the picture.

As far as AI works, is it something that I can do myself? I'm guessing I buy the semen, however many batches I need to fertilize a certain amount of cows, then shove it in their oviducts right? LOL. I need to read up on it.

My plan is to continually rotate bulls. I'd need to buy a bull every two years. I have the understanding that it's not very good to breed the heifers to their sire. If I understand correctly, it takes about two years for the heifer to be fertile. I then need to get another bull to impregnate the heifers and the other cows. If I could do AI, then I'd just need to buy the semen of different bulls every two years right? Is it cheaper that way?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Them cows are in for a rough few years the ones that survive that is.

 

[KMacGinley]

Sounds like Angus will be the bull.

I really want to get to a point to where I can tell what breeds the cows are. I'll probably keep alternating between Anguses and some other breed from now on; maybe Gelbvieh as some of you metioned. From what TurnThatCow's showed me, they come out beautiful.

These cows have been on our land for about three months. These were the only cows on there; the owner didn't pick and choose. He only took his bull out which was a Limousin. Nice looking bull. It's the sire to the calf in the picture.

As far as AI works, is it something that I can do myself? I'm guessing I buy the semen, however many batches I need to fertilize a certain amount of cows, then shove it in their oviducts right? LOL. I need to read up on it.

My plan is to continually rotate bulls. I'd need to buy a bull every two years. I have the understanding that it's not very good to breed the heifers to their sire. If I understand correctly, it takes about two years for the heifer to be fertile. I then need to get another bull to impregnate the heifers and the other cows. If I could do AI, then I'd just need to buy the semen of different bulls every two years right? Is it cheaper that way?

Thanks in advance.

Are you pulling our leg? If not you got a lot of studying to do. :shock:

 

[jaydill]

Sounds like Angus will be the bull.
Don't be so quick to decide Angus. You should do more reasearch outside of just these boards about the pros and cons of Angus. I'm not downing them, just saying that you better be sure of the breed you're going to use and not just use it cause a couple people told you to.

I really want to get to a point to where I can tell what breeds the cows are. I'll probably keep alternating between Anguses and some other breed from now on; maybe Gelbvieh as some of you metioned. From what TurnThatCow's showed me, they come out beautiful.

These cows have been on our land for about three months. These were the only cows on there; the owner didn't pick and choose. He only took his bull out which was a Limousin. Nice looking bull. It's the sire to the calf in the picture.

As far as AI works, is it something that I can do myself? I'm guessing I buy the semen, however many batches I need to fertilize a certain amount of cows, then shove it in their oviducts right? LOL. I need to read up on it.
From what I've read of your posts, I wouldn't recommend you do it yourself. You'd be better off taking it to the vet to get it done. Should you, however, not have the funds than there are classes which can teach you how to do it. IMO, I think you should let the vet do it for the first few years while you educate yourself a little more.


My plan is to continually rotate bulls. I'd need to buy a bull every two years. I have the understanding that it's not very good to breed the heifers to their sire. If I understand correctly, it takes about two years for the heifer to be fertile. I then need to get another bull to impregnate the heifers and the other cows. If I could do AI, then I'd just need to buy the semen of different bulls every two years right? Is it cheaper that way?
You've got the gist of it. AI can be cheaper because the typical price per straw is $20-$30 and you only need one straw per cow...assuming that the cow takes. The reason you need to be careful about breeding the same bull to his daughters is that you cause inbreeding...which can cause a wealth of problems.

Thanks in advance.

If I were you, I'd get to reading this board real quick. Search for things using keywords like "breeding," "calving," "feeding," and other management type words. From what I've read, it seems like you haven't quite got all the basics under your belt. Caustic's not so far off in his previous post...you've got a lot to learn real quick.

 

[andybob]

Geish, you should look into doing an AI course,you can use more than one bull in a single season if you need a low birthweight bull for your hiefers ,and a larger bull for your cows.
You can have different breeds as well as different genotypes in your semen tank. If you would rather use bulls, instead of buying a new bull every two years, look into renting (healthy) bulls instead-be careful of std's.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Sounds like Angus will be the bull.
Don't be so quick to decide Angus. You should do more reasearch outside of just these boards about the pros and cons of Angus. I'm not downing them, just saying that you better be sure of the breed you're going to use and not just use it cause a couple people told you to.

I really want to get to a point to where I can tell what breeds the cows are. I'll probably keep alternating between Anguses and some other breed from now on; maybe Gelbvieh as some of you metioned. From what TurnThatCow's showed me, they come out beautiful.

These cows have been on our land for about three months. These were the only cows on there; the owner didn't pick and choose. He only took his bull out which was a Limousin. Nice looking bull. It's the sire to the calf in the picture.

As far as AI works, is it something that I can do myself? I'm guessing I buy the semen, however many batches I need to fertilize a certain amount of cows, then shove it in their oviducts right? LOL. I need to read up on it.
From what I've read of your posts, I wouldn't recommend you do it yourself. You'd be better off taking it to the vet to get it done. Should you, however, not have the funds than there are classes which can teach you how to do it. IMO, I think you should let the vet do it for the first few years while you educate yourself a little more.


My plan is to continually rotate bulls. I'd need to buy a bull every two years. I have the understanding that it's not very good to breed the heifers to their sire. If I understand correctly, it takes about two years for the heifer to be fertile. I then need to get another bull to impregnate the heifers and the other cows. If I could do AI, then I'd just need to buy the semen of different bulls every two years right? Is it cheaper that way?
You've got the gist of it. AI can be cheaper because the typical price per straw is $20-$30 and you only need one straw per cow...assuming that the cow takes. The reason you need to be careful about breeding the same bull to his daughters is that you cause inbreeding...which can cause a wealth of problems.

Thanks in advance.

If I were you, I'd get to reading this board real quick. Search for things using keywords like "breeding," "calving," "feeding," and other management type words. From what I've read, it seems like you haven't quite got all the basics under your belt. Caustic's not so far off in his previous post...you've got a lot to learn real quick.

I bet they have a big hat and an F-350 dually, what real cowboys drive. ROTFLMAO they will learn at the cows expense, I wonder how they are going to work them crazy limo brammer crosses, didn't hear a word about infrastructure.

 

[stocky]

Alot of the cattle have some charlois in them, they are mixed several directions with some limo and some hereford, some brahma, and probably some angus somewhere, also. The best advice I can give you about a bull is to put a good angus bull with them. The reason is that you dont know alot about cattle, and there will be less worry about calving with the black angus than other breeds, the calves will be black and will sell real good and the ones you keep will be good mothers. You have a very good set of calf raising, milking cows. I have many cows that would match right up with many of those (except for the brahma cross). They are easy keeping cows and will give you a good calf each year until they get too old. The price was very reasonable, in my opinion. They would certainly bring alot more than that here. Good luck and feel free to ask questions of any of these fine folks

 

[jaydill]

I bet they have a big hat and an F-350 dually, what real cowboys drive. ROTFLMAO they will learn at the cows expense, I wonder how they are going to work them crazy limo brammer crosses, didn't hear a word about infrastructure.

:lol:

 

[cypressfarms]

Them cows are in for a rough few years the ones that survive that is.

Train wreck in Houston.

Geish,

Don't take this the wrong way, but it appears you have jumped into the deep end and have no idea how to swim! About the only thing that I can suggest is to read as many back posts as possible as quickly as possible and make some friends real quick in your area (if you already haven't) that have cattle.

 

[aplusmnt]

You might just do ok at this, you seem to be very lucky so far. You have bought a decent looking set of cattle at a decent price. To see if your luck holds up I would get them all Preg checked. You mentioned that most of them are suppose to be bred. If he ran the bull for 3 months with them, they should all be bred, maybe not the calf not sure how big or old she is.

First lesson is if the bull was with all them for three months and they are open you probably should sell those. Second lesson is no need to go to feed store to see what they eat, they have a nice buffet right in front of them!

Spend all your free time reading post on here, books subscribe to any magazines you can and hopefully the guy that sold you the cattle will be willing to help you as you learn, seems like a fair man so far as long as none of the cattle turn out to be a train wreck.