Herefords

[horsegal22]

I'm new to this type of business and i would like to here some comments on what you think about Herefords. I want a breed to be able to live in warm and cool climates, not too expensive though.

Thanks!!

 

[cowboy43]

Where you located, what breed is most in demand in your area, hereford are a gentle breed easy to handle, bred to an brahman bull the off spring will bring top dollar in some areas.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

I think there great, I've often said if starting over I would own nothing but Hereford cows, and then crossbreed with different bulls. The cows will be fine, but your location makes a difference on what you should breed them to.

 

[Beef Man]

Been in the Hereford business all my life. We have owned some other breeds from time to time but have always stayed with the old whiteface's. They have had their problems and a lot were created by we humans. Almost all the serious things are gone some totally eliminated. At this time in this part of the range country they have been regaining popularity, mostly used in crossbreeding and just about all in red or black angus cowherds. Some for dispositon,hibred vigor,and it is very hard to find a better longer lived honest range cow than the real F1 baldy[red or black]. Now as a oldtime dedicated hereford man I certanaly hope that some of our seedstock producers do not shoot tthemselves in the foot as I feel many did 40-50 years ago. I spend to much time ,maybe, sitting around sale rings and I can see the angus breeders propagateing numbers and thinking they are fooling the commercial customer. Only so long can things be hidden or excused before the b.s. hits the fan. At this time certified hereford beef is comeiing of age and it will not only hold its own withall other identified beef but does it with less waste fat and is therefore a lot healthy'er . Herefords are naturally easyier tto handle and one of the great things about them is we have our grandkids help tag and take birthweights every spring.I always run everything with horns and it was relly something to see the kids handling those old horned cows.A great majority of herefords popularityis there fertilty, they have proven this forever. They can survive long bad cold weather , do well anywhere in the south and hold their own with any breed anywhere.One other thing really bothers me and that is our gene pool is so small that we may not be able to regain the position that is needed. When the crash came in the hereford breed a lot of our cattle just dissapeared almost overnight.I,not being a polled man [obvious'ly] am also quite concerened about our polled problem, I do not feel thtas yet a lot of polled cattle are not being bred as practical usefull produceing cattle,rather a kind that maybe used in the showring. We already been ther and did that and damn near ruined our breed. Sorry about my spelling and my rambleing on a lot of things but don't get to express myself very often.

 

[cow pollinater]

Sorry about my spelling and my rambleing on a lot of things but don't get to express myself very often.

You did just fine. :nod:
I'm not anywhere near an expert on Herefords but they have really grown on me after the last two years worth of calves out of my angus/brangus cows. And I'm with beef man on liking the horned variety.
Before you go in whole hog, check at your salebarn and see what red white faced calves sell for. Here in CA they sell at a significant discount so no matter how much I decide I like herefords I don't want them to be more than 50% of the calf.

 

[SPH]

Been in the Hereford business all my life. We have owned some other breeds from time to time but have always stayed with the old whiteface's. They have had their problems and a lot were created by we humans. Almost all the serious things are gone some totally eliminated. At this time in this part of the range country they have been regaining popularity, mostly used in crossbreeding and just about all in red or black angus cowherds. Some for dispositon,hibred vigor,and it is very hard to find a better longer lived honest range cow than the real F1 baldy[red or black]. Now as a oldtime dedicated hereford man I certanaly hope that some of our seedstock producers do not shoot tthemselves in the foot as I feel many did 40-50 years ago. I spend to much time ,maybe, sitting around sale rings and I can see the angus breeders propagateing numbers and thinking they are fooling the commercial customer. Only so long can things be hidden or excused before the b.s. hits the fan. At this time certified hereford beef is comeiing of age and it will not only hold its own withall other identified beef but does it with less waste fat and is therefore a lot healthy'er . Herefords are naturally easyier tto handle and one of the great things about them is we have our grandkids help tag and take birthweights every spring.I always run everything with horns and it was relly something to see the kids handling those old horned cows.A great majority of herefords popularityis there fertilty, they have proven this forever. They can survive long bad cold weather , do well anywhere in the south and hold their own with any breed anywhere.One other thing really bothers me and that is our gene pool is so small that we may not be able to regain the position that is needed. When the crash came in the hereford breed a lot of our cattle just dissapeared almost overnight.I,not being a polled man [obvious'ly] am also quite concerened about our polled problem, I do not feel thtas yet a lot of polled cattle are not being bred as practical usefull produceing cattle,rather a kind that maybe used in the showring. We already been ther and did that and be nice near ruined our breed. Sorry about my spelling and my rambleing on a lot of things but don't get to express myself very often.

I'm curious about what you feel is the problem with Polled Herefords? As a polled breeder I kind of take offense to that because I think that both horned and polled herefords are productive cattle if you breed them right. We prefer polled because we don't like messing with having to de-horn but I don't see how being horned or polled determines how productive the animal will be. I agree with about everything else you said, disposition is a big thing with some breeders and it is hard to find another breed that has a better disposition than a Hereford.

Here in the midwest Herefords have been really hot lately and are selling well. The commercial breeders have finally realized the value in the hybrid vigor when they cross their black cows with Hereford bulls and you see the results at the sale barns too when the black baldy calves bring more $. Seeing a lot more breeders that didn't give Herefords a chance now that did not in the past now that they are realizing the benefits. Herefords are even topping the breed sale averages at the annual beef expo sale here.

 

[Beef Man]

Some years ago I would not have been so critical as I am now. At one time[Spiedel,Veshcovi, Weist and the list goes on] the polled cattle were geting a real good start at holding their own as practical usefull range cattle but in these later years there has been a intense movement to turn them into a hobby type through the show ring mentality and some of these in and out type's useing them as an excuse to being a seedstock producer. The sort that has a need to be looked upon as a rancher. It is one of my dissapointment's with the AHA when we merged with the bankrupt polled Association as we surely needed to do but we did not need to let them almost take over our successfull breed business. In my other thread I do mention that I have some concern that we, as hereford breeders, may not have enough genetic diversity to handle the demand that is on the horizon. One of the problems,[It could be a large one ]is our polled blood and the careless almost steer jockey way of breeding them. All this said I was very well acquanted with some prominent polled cattle men and had a lot of respect for them and what they were trying todo. Genetic Giant[Frank Felton ]was bred and born here and I spent some time at franks several times. We at this time have a small herd of polled cattle and are trying to upgrade them and make them into something that can compete with our horned herefords.My son ,who know's like a lot of you that there is quite a demand for polled asked me last fall " Dad, how long will it take to get the poll's equal in our herd to our commercial and horned herd" All I could say was maybe 20 years. Once again I'm not apolled hate'r and realize that the younger generation will find any shortcut that they can in whatever endevor's they are in. It never even enter'd my mind that dehorning was a problem, just like casterateing always done with a knife Branded withwood and used big irons so our cattle was idetentifable anywhere. Time changes everything and usually after a few years it all settles out anyway. One other thing I notice that a majority of our range bull customers select and will buy the horned bulls first,knowing that if their angus cows are trully bred pure that they willnot have a horn problem, Genetics won't allow that to happen. Therein lies a problem that the Angus breed will have to deal with. I sincerely hope that I didnt step on to many toes in this but take a look and notice what is going on and ask a few questions.

 

[SPH]

Fair enough. I agree with your logic but I don't necessarily think that it's a "polled" mentality about breeding something just for the show ring and ignoring everything else. There probably are folks that do but you can find them in about every breed in my opinion. I guess we focus on maternal and growth traits first and don't obsess with breeding for the showring although we do want our cattle to have a phenotype that they can be competitive in the showring but more importantly we want them to be productive females after the showring and bulls that any type of breeder will find useful but I realize that there are some breeders out there that just want to breed for the next big thing in the show ring too. I do shake my head at times walking down the aisles at a show or sale and looking over the pedigrees of some of the animals. I just don't get how some breeders can completely ignore functionality, birth weights and poor maternal traits. Yeah that animal may make you some good money selling to someone wanting a competitive animal in the show ring but someone is going to be disappointed in a year when they are pulling a 100+ pound calf from a heifer that doesn't have enough milk.

Frank Felton had a nice program, we still have some of his cattle's genetics represented in our herd that mostly go back to Feltons 517 probably. We AI to Revolution 4R who is a Feltons Legend 242 son and have got some really nice calves from him. What polled bulls are you using or thinking of using? Have you ever checked out Rausch Herefords? They breed both horned and polled so they might have some genetics you'd appreciate, we bought our current herd sire from them and he's done well for us.

 

[Taurus]

Yup you can find every breed in showring and making them into club calf. Not just polled Herefords but Angus, Simmentals, Charolais, Shorthorns, Chiangus, Maine Anjou, even Horned Herefords too.....

Tho there are very few club calf bulls can fit in the commercial operations, making good replacements and marketable calves.

 

[Beef Man]

Oh yes,Taurus, I know there are steer jockey's in all breeds but when the worm turned in the hereford business most of them could not run fast enough to get away. But their were or was enough polled breeders ,mostly in the eastern part of the U.S. that still thought the way to breed cattle and measure them for a succesful operation was use the showring. Not all polled and certanely there was a few that hung on in every breed. I myself just about took ajob with Hull-Dobbs[60 years ago] to travel with their polled showstring. 2 things stoped me those damn nurse cows and I wa s bound and detirmined to go into biz for myself and knew where there was a dispersion sale where it would be possible to hopefully get some cows bought. Which I did qnd nomore than got them home and found that I was the proud owner of a load of dwarf carriers,.Had borrowed all the money to buy these wonderfull beasts so Dad and I got out the horn saws threw away the papers and they worked themselves out produceing feeder cattle[took a long time toget them paid off].Ever after this lession I'v been very gunshy of even a hint of a genetic problem. In fact I andFrank did have a near heeted debate over the Titan mess.Incidently I had atip about that bull in Kansas City from Burke and Skip Healey. They said to "take a long look and don't jump in to deep ". North of Minot N.Dakota was a nice AI colection setup and a few years ago I was to deliver a bull their for collection so while there I saw 2 of the tallest polled bulls ever in my life. A worker ther said it was a true rumor that they were some part Red Holstein and you had to be in the right group to use them. Iwas'nt interested but later found outthere was truth in that. What I'm trying to say is all breeds have had and or are seeing the fruits of labors of get rich people.