has anyone used GAR Gridmaker on their angus?????
- Thread starter farmerD44
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No but have seen a lot of his calves. if your cows are what I call true breeding quality you would not have problems. I am not trying to start a argument. I mean the cows can have a 100 lbs calve. Show depth, width as well as other maturnal instincs. the calves I have seen have been broad in weight range. 65 to 105 lbs. Tell me some about your cattle. He is one hell of a bull.
Scotty
Scotty
farmerD44
Well-known member
well these cows are going to have there second calf this year so they would be on there third if i bred them to gridmaker this spring. the one cow i want to breed him to had twins last year and one weighed 69lbs the other- 68lbs. so i think she could handle it. and a couple of other cows are large enough to handle him i think. The largest calf we had last year from these first calvers was 78lbs.- they were AI bred specifically for calving ease. I guess i am more interested in how his calves come out then just the weight. Do they all need pulling? if they do then i will just stick with new design genetics.
Dan.
Dan.
farmerD44
Well-known member
hey- i just looked at 1I2 and his numbers dont look much better then 5050's and 5050 has higher milk#. So i guess if his calves look good this year i would be best off sticking with him. we had some calves from 208 last year and they are awsome!!!!
Dan.
Dan.
farmerD44":1pavfh7o said:
No. Just sounds like you want smaller claves at birth. 5050 is a good bull. 1I2 would be a great one to outcross. He is one of the best for low BW. I don't let the BW bother me too much. I say that and I don't go over a 5.5 on the BW scale now. Have some cows 6+. I guesse it boils down to were you are going and want to go. I personally would not worry about Gridmaker on mature cows one bit. Caution one thing on the milk. I beleive it can reflect the ease of keeping on the cows. Breed average is good enough. I raise my bulls for carcass so milk is important only to a point. WW, YW, IMF, RE, and % RP. I like Pinnacle, Future Direction, and the like. I have some bred to DCC Rito 1I5 (14171230) DCC Rito 3J4(14575900). I also have one bred to GAR Integrity(14222612) If you like the New Design you will like this bull.
Scotty
farmerD44
Well-known member
well Integrity looks like a good bull but his #'s are lower than what i am using now. I have the Select sires spreadsheet in front of me here.
I am concerned about the milk # because some of these cows dont give alot of milk. I think that needs improving. and i am used to heavy milking simmentals, LOL.
Dan.
I am concerned about the milk # because some of these cows dont give alot of milk. I think that needs improving. and i am used to heavy milking simmentals, LOL.
Dan.
JustACountryGirl
Member
FarmerD
We used Gridmaker on one of our cows and I think it will be a great calf. She is due in Feb. She is 5 yrs, is wide with great depth and has had a few calves. On our cows that have only had one calf prior and are younger (3yrs) we used GAR Expectation and Bon View Spectrum. We, too, don't want to chance pulling calves or injuring our cows. Although their #'s are slightly lower, the WW and YW are pretty good. We also considered our cows' lineage.
We used Gridmaker on one of our cows and I think it will be a great calf. She is due in Feb. She is 5 yrs, is wide with great depth and has had a few calves. On our cows that have only had one calf prior and are younger (3yrs) we used GAR Expectation and Bon View Spectrum. We, too, don't want to chance pulling calves or injuring our cows. Although their #'s are slightly lower, the WW and YW are pretty good. We also considered our cows' lineage.
krenwic
Well-known member
If the cows will be coming 4 year-olds they shouldn't have a problem with birthing Grid Maker calves. Remember--Angus is a calving-ease breed anyway. If you're honest with how good your cows are then it makes th decision easy. Good Luck.
Larry Sansom
Well-known member
The bull is Terminal - why worry about milk, etc. You would Not want to keep heifers by him, if you do - you are on your own! Look at $EN etc on heifer replacement sires. They need to hit 20+ on $ EN (most of the high growth bulls are negative or single digit $EN) to even consider keeping for a cow maker - unless you like creep feeding and supporting the cow with extra feed.
Larry Sansom":1allc5x2 said:
I agree to a point. I doubt the accuracy of any EN value over 15. But what you said, in my opinion, is true of high milk. To me even if you are producing replacements, breed average is plenty. Cows over 20 on milk have been high maintenance cows for me.
Scotty
farmerD44
Well-known member
why wouldnt i want heifers by him- they will still be smaller than our current simmental cows. and crossed with the angus that we have the numbers will average and be much lower than gridmakers'. That is the point- i want to increase the size of my cows. But maybe the New Design's that i have been using with +87 and + 107 yearling weight #'s are as high as i should go eh????
As for milk- more milk means a bigger calf in the fall in most cases from what i have seen. We have a small herd and they have never been short of feed. when the pastures get run down we feed hay and silage. The cows get a little thin towards weaning time but after weaning they fatten right up again.
We have one beautiful PB heifer calf this year that was sired by new design 208 and its milk # is averaged out to +32.5
she is very fleshy and i think will turn out to be one of our best cows. That said- i dont plan on goin any higher than that for milk- i will be breeding her to a plus 20 something for milk bull next spring. I would love to have a full herd of new design blooded cows with +20 to +30 milk #'s. Our best cows right now have milk #'s over +20.
Still thinking about perhaps using gridmaker on a few cows tho.
Dan.
As for milk- more milk means a bigger calf in the fall in most cases from what i have seen. We have a small herd and they have never been short of feed. when the pastures get run down we feed hay and silage. The cows get a little thin towards weaning time but after weaning they fatten right up again.
We have one beautiful PB heifer calf this year that was sired by new design 208 and its milk # is averaged out to +32.5
she is very fleshy and i think will turn out to be one of our best cows. That said- i dont plan on goin any higher than that for milk- i will be breeding her to a plus 20 something for milk bull next spring. I would love to have a full herd of new design blooded cows with +20 to +30 milk #'s. Our best cows right now have milk #'s over +20.
Still thinking about perhaps using gridmaker on a few cows tho.
Dan.
