Limousin good, bad or ugly?
- Thread starter S.R.R.
- Start date
jt
Well-known member
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- Mar 9, 2004
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S.R.R.":1657ve18 said:
:lol: most on the board that comment on limos, dont like em... limos had the reputation of being highstrung and crazy... and sometimes reputations take a while to change if they ever do change at all.. but over the years some of the craziness has been bred out of em. i have a herd that is very docile... and i dont have any problem with em, but others will differ with this...
kinda like the old reputation that the charlois had... calving problems... but most of that has been bred out.
there will be problems with any breed, and there are crazy ones in every breed. ;-)
jmo
jt
There are a number of posts that are very complimentary about them. None of mine, but there are people that are really high on them. Heavy muscle which for a terminal sire is a good thiing, not much marbeling/if any which doesn;t hurt if you're looking at the yeild grade grid. Generally a little more excitable then some other breeds. Yes they have made big strides in their teprament, but a friend of mine that runs around 400 cows still gets alot of luncatics every year. His family was the first limo breeder in this part of MO so he probably has a pretty significant body of experience. And he still ahs problems with some of them. But if you're selling at the local sale barn, the muscle will look good and should sell good.
dun
dun
Dun, what's "luncatics"....
I agree with dun, the bulls make a good terminal sire, and I have seen allot of good looking cattle, but they can be "tigers". It alls goes back to how you raise them too. Get them young and raise them gentle. There is a large herd near me and the momas appear to do a very good job raising their calves.
Ferdinand D Bull
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- Feb 8, 2005
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- 36
What gives?[/quote]
Well you asked about Pieds. Even Limousins would be a better choice.
Well you asked about Pieds. Even Limousins would be a better choice.
G&L Cattle
Well-known member
We like em on our place!
G&L
G&L
If you are looking to use a Limousin bull try to find one from a reputable herd. Take a look at the bull's docility epd. Higher the better. Above twenty is good. Then if you are really worried about him being wild go to "www.nalf.org". On this website you can go to "Find A Pedigree" at the top of the page and look at his pedigree. His pedigree will take you back generations where you can find docility and other epds for all ancestors. Remember with a terminal sire milk is not that important. Neither is a excessively low birth weight. Limousin's are pretty easy calving in general. Instead look for high ww, yw, rib eye, and the yield grade epds. The yield grade epd is new and the lower the number the better. Good luck.
Take a look at the web site for top meadow farms in Ontario now those are some big bulls! Having Gelbvieh cross cows I thought that useing simmental would be over kill. On the MARC table 2 it shows limousin as not growing as fast as the sims but I bet alot depends on the bull not just the breed eh?
Exaclty. Look at their growth epds. High ww epds, 43 and above, with high accuracies can assure good growth. A high accuracy is over .70. Also pay attention to yw epds above 78 is good. With ww and yw epds over 43 and 78 you will have a bull in the top twenty percent of the breed for both. Looking at Top Meadow Farms bulls is a great choice they have great genetics.
I'll try to give you a rundown of the limousin epds. The higher the Calving Ease Direct EPD (CED) the better. Above 9 would get you in the top twenty percent of the breed. The birth weight epd BW is the opposite the lower the better. 1 or below would get you in the top twenty persent of the breed. Keep in mind sometimes small calves may not grow as quickly. Weaning weight epd is a estimation of how well a calf will perform at weaning time. It uses the calves 205 day adjusted weaning weight. This is calculated by using actual weaning weight, birth weight, age at weaning, cow age, and if the calf got creep feed. Yearling weight epd is about the same as ww epd. It uses the yearling weight instead of the weaning weight to calculate how a calf of the sire may perform at a year of age weight. Milking ablility epd will predict how a heifer from the bull will perform in milk output over twelve hours. Over 23 will get you in the top twenty percent of the breed. Keep in mind moderate milk wieghts are better as cows with too much milk may have problems breeding back. Scrotal epds the higher the better. Over .5 is in the top 20 percent of the breed. Calving ease maternal (cem) will tell you how easily the bulls heifers will calve in their first calving. Now for carcass epds. Carcass weights will let you know how big of a hot carcass the bulls steers will have hanging. Above 21 is the top 20 percent of the breed. Ribeye epd will give you a good idea of well muscled the calves may be above .27 will get you in the top 20 percent of the breed. As ribeye area usually corralates with overall muscling. Marbling tell you how well the calves will marble. Above .03 is in the top twenty percent of the breed. Yield grade epd is new this year for limousins it takes into account carcass traits so you may estimate how well the calves will yield grade. Under -.07 is in top 20% of breed. Lower the better. Keep in mind bulls with accuracies over 70 are proven in those epds. Also look back at a bulls pedigree and hsi ancestors epd to let you know how predictable a pedigree may be.
polledbull
Well-known member
I have have a herd of Limousin , and they are fine . I find once a different breed gets ahold of something like a fault in another breed , they will not let it go. I can set here and find all kinds of fault in angus, simmintal, ect... I always say there are bad cattle in every breed . It is our job to cull them out and better the quality of your herd with each saved heifer or purchased cow. The docility problem that the "other" breeders refer to was with a few of the older bulls that have been dead for 20 years and havent been used in any program for that long. Every progressive breeder is using the best and latest genetics he can get to improve thier herd. There are a few limi bulls that I would never use for that reason , but they were at the time some of the only and first bulls brought over to start the breed here in the USA, they were the only bulls you could use to AI too. Once there were better bulls to choose from those bulls quicky went by the wayside and great improvement has been made ever since .
Sometimes a bull is put on stud so that the farm who owns or bred him can get some plublicity. He may excel at other traits though. Another reason may be he has a pedigree with high strung ancestors. He however may have been a very docile bull. If he is not used heavily his epd wouldn't change. It may have a low accuracy. You are right though there are some out there. High strung cattle are a liability. Usually resulting in poor growth and poor carcass quality.
No problem with limos here for the past 5 bulls but we did have a problem with an older one. I think he was six and beyond his time to go but he was still doing his job and was still very docile. When loading him something happened to the cut gate in the trailer when he steped aboard there was a bang and he went off. Settled down later but was a very eye opening experience. We have one that this will be his last season and we just bought two black angus yearlings to fill in with the other group. We would still be staying with the limos but the replacements are getting to be 3/4 and 7/8 cross so we chose to go back to black instead of white due to the local market and cow size. Our crosses sell as well as anything but that maybe the area. Got to give them what they want. To me though there is nothing more sickening than to see a good hereford steer cut 30 cents especially since they have always been my favorite. It will take a while to get used to the angus frame since I have gotten used to looking at those limo butts
Some of the biggest nuts I have seen have been black angus but there are bad examples in every breed. I sure do enjoy the calving aspects of the limos though and their ability to take care of themselves overall but these are crosses I'm talking about so I don't know about the full stock animals except the bulls
With ours the only problem we have had has working them and we have fixed that by setting up properly for them and that would be the same for any breed we fooled with. Most of that was telling the idiot who volunteered, to shut up the yelling and whooping and hollering when he was helping out. Some people have built up frustrations that they like to take out on animals. The bad thing is that some of them are seedstock producers so I try to keep that in mind when buying I don't care what their papers said.
Just my views and are subject to change without notice,
Poorboy
Some of the biggest nuts I have seen have been black angus but there are bad examples in every breed. I sure do enjoy the calving aspects of the limos though and their ability to take care of themselves overall but these are crosses I'm talking about so I don't know about the full stock animals except the bulls
With ours the only problem we have had has working them and we have fixed that by setting up properly for them and that would be the same for any breed we fooled with. Most of that was telling the idiot who volunteered, to shut up the yelling and whooping and hollering when he was helping out. Some people have built up frustrations that they like to take out on animals. The bad thing is that some of them are seedstock producers so I try to keep that in mind when buying I don't care what their papers said.
Just my views and are subject to change without notice,
Poorboy
We just hauled 16 purebred limousin steers to the sale barn saturday.They were the highest selling of the day. And even had a few people come up and ask us what we feed because we consistently have the best calves ever sale.
