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<blockquote data-quote="Andyva" data-source="post: 1435579" data-attributes="member: 1022"><p>I always liked herefords. I always thought a red cow bred to a black bull was a good way to go. Buy a red bull for every couple black ones and hold back a bunch of replacement heifers. I quit herefords. Hold back a bunch of heifers, and have to cull most of them by the time they are eight. Not worth it for the beating you take on the steers. </p><p></p><p>I'm probably stupid for keeping a heifer calf, but there is a fair amount of dairying around here, everybody seems to want to buy cull dairy cows and use them as nurse cows, and raise up a beef herd off of orphaned beef calves. Had a neighbor that bought a whole load of pretty lim/angus/charolais bred cows. He culled most of them within four years, all of them by six. Riddled with Johnes. I think I'll just keep doing it the way that Dad did it, and raise replacement heifers. But not with hereford.</p><p></p><p> I bought a shorthorn bull, thought it couldn't be no worse than hereford. Studied pedigrees a bit and shopped around. Didn't have to fight a bunch of people at a sale to get him. Most uniform, heaviest calves we have had on the place in decades. Heifers are making good cows, raising scale mashers right from the start. Except the one that had a calf when she was 15 monthsold, that one was a little puny, but she did breed back. So I don't think it is the showing that has hurt herefords, and I don't think it is impurities. I think it has to do with not being able to tell what you are getting by looking at the pedigree. Still take a little beating on red steers, but have noticed it is not as bad on the solid red ones as it is with the white faced ones. The white spots on the body, which has been rare, only showing up on some cows out of the neighbors simmental, don't do any worse than white faced ones.</p><p></p><p>What I saw as a problem, was that there for a while, big calves were a big problem with the hereford, and they tried to combat this with lower birthweights. Then they got cows that were small, had narrow hips, and still throw a huge calf every once in a while. Get one that can calf OK and she has a swingbag when she is four. I don't think it has anything to do with purity, or old or new genetics, it has to do with not breeding out bad traits. Or at least identifying what is throwing those traits, and keeping it out of the commercial world. </p><p></p><p>When we used hereford, we kept heifers out of a hereford bull for a couple years, shipped him and got a low birthweight angus bull. Then after two or three years, we would get an angus that had a little more moderate birthweight, and then got a hereford again a few years later. Worked in the seventies, early eighties, not so much in the nineties, and after the last one around 2005, herefords are going to need to change before I have another one. A hereford calf is a pretty thing, though, will miss that. I might AI one here and there, just to see a hereford calf. Most of the cows that look like a hereford anymore on the place are part simmental, though. If Titan 23d was part simmental, as a commercial guy, I don't see that as a bad thing, if it was the RIGHT simmental. Therein lies the problem.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Andyva, post: 1435579, member: 1022"] I always liked herefords. I always thought a red cow bred to a black bull was a good way to go. Buy a red bull for every couple black ones and hold back a bunch of replacement heifers. I quit herefords. Hold back a bunch of heifers, and have to cull most of them by the time they are eight. Not worth it for the beating you take on the steers. I'm probably stupid for keeping a heifer calf, but there is a fair amount of dairying around here, everybody seems to want to buy cull dairy cows and use them as nurse cows, and raise up a beef herd off of orphaned beef calves. Had a neighbor that bought a whole load of pretty lim/angus/charolais bred cows. He culled most of them within four years, all of them by six. Riddled with Johnes. I think I'll just keep doing it the way that Dad did it, and raise replacement heifers. But not with hereford. I bought a shorthorn bull, thought it couldn't be no worse than hereford. Studied pedigrees a bit and shopped around. Didn't have to fight a bunch of people at a sale to get him. Most uniform, heaviest calves we have had on the place in decades. Heifers are making good cows, raising scale mashers right from the start. Except the one that had a calf when she was 15 monthsold, that one was a little puny, but she did breed back. So I don't think it is the showing that has hurt herefords, and I don't think it is impurities. I think it has to do with not being able to tell what you are getting by looking at the pedigree. Still take a little beating on red steers, but have noticed it is not as bad on the solid red ones as it is with the white faced ones. The white spots on the body, which has been rare, only showing up on some cows out of the neighbors simmental, don't do any worse than white faced ones. What I saw as a problem, was that there for a while, big calves were a big problem with the hereford, and they tried to combat this with lower birthweights. Then they got cows that were small, had narrow hips, and still throw a huge calf every once in a while. Get one that can calf OK and she has a swingbag when she is four. I don't think it has anything to do with purity, or old or new genetics, it has to do with not breeding out bad traits. Or at least identifying what is throwing those traits, and keeping it out of the commercial world. When we used hereford, we kept heifers out of a hereford bull for a couple years, shipped him and got a low birthweight angus bull. Then after two or three years, we would get an angus that had a little more moderate birthweight, and then got a hereford again a few years later. Worked in the seventies, early eighties, not so much in the nineties, and after the last one around 2005, herefords are going to need to change before I have another one. A hereford calf is a pretty thing, though, will miss that. I might AI one here and there, just to see a hereford calf. Most of the cows that look like a hereford anymore on the place are part simmental, though. If Titan 23d was part simmental, as a commercial guy, I don't see that as a bad thing, if it was the RIGHT simmental. Therein lies the problem. [/QUOTE]
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