Heifer acceptable Hereford?

[Lazy M]

http://www.herfnet.com/online/cgi-bin/i ... 3&9=535159
Picked up this Hereford bull on Saturday. I'm not very good at interpreting herf epds. By the numbers does this bull seem ok to use for angus-based heifers? I'll also have the heifers pelvic measured. Below is a terrible pic that I took of the bull.

 

[BC]

His EPD's suggest that he should be an easy calving bull. Here is a graph of his EPD's:
http://www.herfnet.com/online/cgi-bin/i ... FFFBF9FBF5

 

[SPH]

He'll be just fine for heifers. We've used his sire AI quite a bit and have several daughters now and 1 thing Revolution 4R has been consistently good with is calving ease and birth weight.

 

[Lazy M]

He'll be just fine for heifers. We've used his sire AI quite a bit and have several daughters now and 1 thing Revolution 4R has been consistently good with is calving ease and birth weight.

Thx. I don't have any experience with Revolution. Do his calves have decent growth?

 

[SPH]

It wasn't but a few years ago that Revolution was #1 in new registrations in the Hereford breed and there are quite a few sons and daughters of him in production now in a lot of programs around the country. Most of our Revolution calves usually were our top calves in their calf crops and the daughters we kept are quickly becoming some of our best young cows. I do think that he probably sires better females than he does bulls or at least much more consistent with the females IMO. He does moderate frame size a little bit so depending on how big your cattle is I would say our average frame size of Revolution progeny were usually between a 5 and 6 frame but mostly in that mid 5 frame range. He's probably one of the more proven sires in the breed right now since there has been so much progeny sired by him.

We kept in-herd semen interest on a Revolution son we raised and sold to another program and after seeing the calves they had sired by him plus we have 3 daughters of our own now in production with calves we're probably going to use more of that bull in our AI program in the coming years as his calves have really stood out and really like how his daughters are as cows now.

 

[Lazy M]

Great info, thx!

 

[Lazy M]

Found a video of the bull from the sale. Let me know what you think; bad or good.
https://vimeo.com/album/4334882/video/197525743

 

[Stocker Steve]

What happened with the Sensation calves after the initial EPD buzz several years ago? Is he a cow maker?

 

[MRRherefords]

Looks like a good heifer bull prospect. Good luck with him. We have always been impressed with most anything with 4R in it. By the way did you buy this at the Boyd sale? The Boyds always raises good bulls.

 

[cow pollinater]

I'm almost done calving sixty head of angus heifers bred to two hereford bulls with very similar calving ease numbers to yours. I did an easy pull on one fairly large calf and lost one early on that had a pretty big calf that I may have been able to pull if I had found her sooner. Based on everything else I'd say those were both on the heifers side of things, though and they are good calving ease bulls.
Both sides of your bulls pedigree are pretty similar for calving ease so he should stick fairly close to his EPD.

 

[Lazy M]

Looks like a good heifer bull prospect. Good luck with him. We have always been impressed with most anything with 4R in it. By the way did you buy this at the Boyd sale? The Boyds always raises good bulls.

Thanks. Yes, got him at the Boyds sale. The Boyds are nice folks, and have great cattle. I've went to this sale for the last 6 or 7 years and this is the first year that I really thought that their herefords looked better overall then their angus. That said, their top angus bull sold for $85k.

 

[Lazy M]

I'm almost done calving sixty head of angus heifers bred to two hereford bulls with very similar calving ease numbers to yours. I did an easy pull on one fairly large calf and lost one early on that had a pretty big calf that I may have been able to pull if I had found her sooner. Based on everything else I'd say those were both on the heifers side of things, though and they are good calving ease bulls.
Both sides of your bulls pedigree are pretty similar for calving ease so he should stick fairly close to his EPD.

Thanks. Good luck with the rest of the heifers

 

[elkwc]

What happened with the Sensation calves after the initial EPD buzz several years ago? Is he a cow maker?

Steve I've seen some sons of his that I feel are better bulls and real heifer bulls. Sensation is a heifer bull but I feel unless crossed right doesn't sire the best calves always. I consider 3027 a better choice. And 5216 is another good choice in my opinion. Of course there are many deciding factors in a heifer calving easy. Some of it depends on the heifer. She has influence just like the bull does. And another factor is age and size. We try not to calve anything before they are two years old. So far this has worked well for us. When we tried calving earlier we had more issues.

 

[KNERSIE]

Sensation needs a powerful cow then he'll produce very satisfactorily. If the cow is a little frail and fine boned there isn't much to the Sensation calves.

The bull calf of this thread may very well be a great heifer bull, but with such a lazy pecker ans such terrible eyes I would not consider him as a bull prospect.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Hi Knersie, Thanks for the tip. Good to hear from you. How are things in SA?

 

[KNERSIE]

Hi Knersie, Thanks for the tip. Good to hear from you. How are things in SA?

It's alright, just still very dry in my part of the country, although the drought has been broken further north.

 

[Nesikep]

Sensation needs a powerful cow then he'll produce very satisfactorily. If the cow is a little frail and fine boned there isn't much to the Sensation calves.

The bull calf of this thread may very well be a great heifer bull, but with such a lazy pecker ans such terrible eyes I would not consider him as a bull prospect.

That is something that bothers me on this guy as well, especially since he's so young still

 

[Lazy M]

Sensation needs a powerful cow then he'll produce very satisfactorily. If the cow is a little frail and fine boned there isn't much to the Sensation calves.

The bull calf of this thread may very well be a great heifer bull, but with such a lazy pecker ans such terrible eyes I would not consider him as a bull prospect.

That is something that bothers me on this guy as well, especially since he's so young still

In his defense I'm not sure he has a lazy pecker, but I've got some open heifers in heat in the pasture right beside his corral. He's been a pretty frustrated dude.. Can't make excuses for his eyes though, but I'm not really sure what's wrong with them. I don't think that they're buggy, but would like to hear what the concern is.."terrible" doesn't really help me learn anything.

 

[5S Cattle]

Sensation needs a powerful cow then he'll produce very satisfactorily. If the cow is a little frail and fine boned there isn't much to the Sensation calves.

The bull calf of this thread may very well be a great heifer bull, but with such a lazy pecker ans such terrible eyes I would not consider him as a bull prospect.

That is something that bothers me on this guy as well, especially since he's so young still

In his defense I'm not sure he has a lazy pecker, but I've got some open heifers in heat in the pasture right beside his corral. He's been a pretty frustrated dude.. Can't make excuses for his eyes though, but I'm not really sure what's wrong with them. I don't think that they're buggy, but would like to hear what the concern is.."terrible" doesn't really help me learn anything.

Doesn't look to have much/any pigment in them to me.

 

[KNERSIE]

I don't think that they're buggy, but would like to hear what the concern is.."terrible" doesn't really help me learn anything.

He has open unprotected eyes with eyelashes that points upwards. Eye conformation plays a much bigger role than anything else in the prevention of sore eyes.