Thanks for the kind words on the calves. Its tough to tell how they'll make out, although there are a couple of them that are stocky little brutes that I know are gonna make cows.
As far as the cross goes, the first five are Black Angus/Shortie cross of course. The fourth one with a little red on him is a BA/Shortie/Shortie cross.
The two with all the white, and the first bull calf are Shorthorn calves off a couple Simm/Shorthorn cross cows. If I could find a few more smaller framed Simms in my area, I'd snap them up. That Simm/Shorthorn cross has worked _amazingly_ well for me, as good as, and in some cases, better than my Angus/Shorthorn crosses. This January/Feb when I had the troubles with Ergot and not being able to find out where it was coming from, I had to put the calves on oat straw and 8 lbs of rolled barley. I figured the Simm crosses would fall apart, but they thrived while the Brits just did _ok_ on the ration. If that bull calf keeps on looking good, he'll stick around and breed my commercial cows.
The last two bulls are an experiment my neighbor wants to try. The flashy one is 1/8 Simm, 1/8 Angus, 3/4 Shorthorn, while the bottom one 1/4 Simm, 1/4 Angus, 1/2 Shorthorn. They're out of two of the best animals on the place. He runs Simm and Simm/Angus commercials and he wants to try a composite bull, versus a purebred in the theory he'll still have a 3 breed cross (maximum heterosis) coming out the other end, but he'll be able to get some additional bloodlines into the animals. I think he may be getting too watered down due to within-breed heterosis, but its his money
Rod
