Heifer Bull

[Dap]

Be careful using Anchor bulls on heifers. His epd's and the bw of the calves are fine, but they are wide calves and hard on heifers from my experience. Call the man you bought the bulls from and see what he thinks.

 

[dun]

We've used Pfred (SUMMITCREST HI FLYER 3B18 AAA 11783725) from ABS. I was really pleasently surprised at the calves. The only one we have complete weights on BW 74 WW 654

 

[backhoeboogie]

BW alone helps, but also consider a blocked shouldered 75 lb calf will potentially be trouble. More than an elongated 85 lb calf.

 

[twabscs]

I wouldn't even consider the Legend bull if you want to retain replacements out of this matings. In fact I wouldn't consider breeding anything to him when I have a better allround option in the anchor bull.

Okay, so that helps. My plan is to use the two bulls to create two different "herds" given that I recently added 90 acres about 6 miles from my current farm.

1) Home Farm - Pasture One - Anchor and "good" females that I would potentially keep replacements out of.
2) Home Farm - Pasture Two - Heifers and soon to purchase "heifer bull". Once they have their first calf, they move to pasture one.

3) Remote Farm - Pasture Three - Legend and "junk" females that I wouldn't even consider replacements out of.

Over time, I'll replace Legend with a more "terminal" bull for that pasture.

Three bulls for 60-70 head (end goal on 220 acres) is getting a bit pricey. Maybe I could use the "heifer bull" in the terminal pasture at some point. Or, after a couple of years, I'll just purchase good replacements. It's just too expensive to start that way given the price of good quality bred heifers.

Thoughts?

 

[twabscs]

Be careful using Anchor bulls on heifers. His epd's and the bw of the calves are fine, but they are wide calves and hard on heifers from my experience. Call the man you bought the bulls from and see what he thinks.

He wants me to buy a new heifer bull, so it looks like that's what I'll do in the spring.

This time I'll start looking at them early and get a good one.