LonghornxBeefmaster

[Brute 23]

Are you dead set on keeping the Longhorns? The best move will be to start selling off LH and replacing them with Beefmaster cattle.

What I am getting at is LH have a purpose and that is to run on the most horrible of country or to make pretty lawn ornaments. If you can run a LH X BM cow... you can run a straight BM cow. If all that can survive on your country is LH then put a terminal Angus, Char, Beefmaster bull on them and be done.

There is no use crossing an 18 wheeler and a honda civic. You will just have a crappy version on both because they serve two different purposes. Same with the Beefmaster X LH.

 

[Rafter S]

A. LH already have great maternal traits/instincts...that's one of their attributes.
b. If this would have been a good idea, Tom Lassiter & his father would have used LH instead of Brahman, tho there has always been some speculation that Tom's father did play around a bit with another (4th) breed in the woodpile when he first started developing the BM..
c. If your beefmasters don't already have plenty of maternals, then maybe you need to cull a little more/better?
d. The offspring gonna be one ugly thing to have to look at IMO.
e. The composite Beefmaster is already a 3way. I don't think you get enough out of making it into a 4way, then going back with an Angus as something has to get diluted along the way.
f. I sure hope you aren't going to be sacrificing docility with the Beefmaster X LH...that could make working in open pasture right after calving time an interesting sight.
G. There are 6 essentials...not 8.

It must have been Black Angus. How else could we have so many black Beefmasters now?

 

[elkwc]

The Only Bulls that will bring you $ on Longhorns are Terminal EPD Charolais, then Limousin bulls as very close second place

Oh god this is getting old.

I agree.It seems that whatever breed is a person's favorite it is the only one anyone should use. Like I've stated before most of us around this area aren't willing to take the dock that a Char cross and others get at the barn.

 

[elkwc]

My intensions are not to improve the Beefmaster breed. I recently started raising Registered Beefmasters and I believe there is plenty of genetics out there to find what anyone would want in the breed. My dad and me have always mainly had your typical AngusxHereford cows then around 15yrs ago we switched our Hereford bulls to Limousine bulls. And for my personal herd the last 8 years I have had a Beefmaster bull around which I have been very pleased with. As far as my longhorns go I am just basically experimenting with the cross to see what kind of commercial mamma cows they can produce with a Beefmaster bull, and to improve there calves worth at the sale barn. I understand the Limousine or Charolaise cross would be the best cross to use to strictly sell at the sale barn. But I question what the quality of the heifers would be VS the Beefmaster cross. And my plans to make the cross the 3rd time would be strictly to help remove more color and if their is any ear which I would use a Limousine or Angus bull for that. I wouldn't plan on holding any of them calves back as replacements. My personal opinion, I believe most of the common British or Beef breeds like Hereford, Angus, Simmental, Charolaise, etc. have been crossed and diluted so much to improve the breed/color that their ability to create the Hybrid vigor cross wouldn't be much difference as using a Beefmaster bull just my 2 cents.
As far as the ones that believe there is no ability or worth in a full blood Longhorn cow in the beef world. I strongly disagree I don't think there is a breed out there with the ability to make you more money on a budget or on rough ground. The non registered full blood longhorns are still very cheap and there is guys I know that use Charolaise and Limousine bulls on them and the calves do good at the sale barn, they grow just as good as a lot of peoples commercial beef calves. Of course yes you will have a few that will have color and horn that will be docked at the sale but as a whole they do good. My longhorns I feed half as much Hay to as my Beef cattle and at $25-$60 a bale that adds up, and I am yet to pull a calf. I also have several cows that are 16yrs old that still raise a nice calf. Yes it is more of a hassle to work longhorns with the big horns but in my experience I rarely have to get them up for anything like pink eye, foot rot or to pull a calf. As far as going to buy cows to pay for themselves I believe longhorns have a lot potential and would pay for them selves faster than the Beef breeds starting out at least. Again that's just my experience and 2 cents again.
As far as my full blood and registered Longhorns. I am striving to raise a different style Longhorn than your typical Longhorn breeder. I choose Maternal traits, Growth, Larger Body size/structure and solid color over Horn Growth. Horn size is currently the bottom of my list. I want my longhorns to be able to raise the biggest calf possible on rough brushy rocky land that the typical Beef breeds couldn't survive on. I have only had them sense 2013 so I have a lot of improving to do but I will eventually get them were I want them to be.

Sounds like you have a good plan and I would stick with it. There are some beefier type LH's around. I used to buy some and then feed them out when done with them. They all were 1,250-1,350 when fed out. Know of several that use them and cross with an Angus or Saler and get very good calves. The cows will wean as many pounds per acre as any breed I know. Please keep us updated on how your experiment goes. I think it will work very well. Most who offer opinions have never raised a beef type LH.

 

[MOcowboy]

My original plan was not to keep the full blood longhorns. I was very happy with my BeefmasterXAngus cross cattle. I bought them cheap and my plan was to breed them to Angus, Limousine or Beefmaster bulls and basically eventually breed the longhorn out of them. Or just sell them all when the price went up after the drought which I honestly should have done 2 years ago when the cattle prices went crazy lol. And I am not attached to anything for the right price I will still sell out but I don't see that happening. The main reason I kept hanging on to them is because I was just starting out and it did not seem practical to sell them all, when they was all paid off and I owed nothing on them, and have to pay double to buy the same amount of Beef cows to replace them. My Longhorn cross calves of course brought a lil less than My dads Angus and Limousine calves but I also had a lot less hay in my cattle so at the time it made sense to just keep them. Then I got the bright idea of putting a Registered Longhorn bull in with half of them to keep a few to replace some of the old cows and to improve what I thought needed improved. So I was very picky and went out to find a Bull that had large body frame and later matured to 2000lbs and he was out of a good cow with very good maternal traits to put on my longhorns and now I have just grown to Like them and see some of the potential so I keep experimenting with them. Almost all of my longhorn cows are 1100lbs plus and I prefer the solid color and maybe that's why they are working for me. I do agree that your average 600-800lbs longhorns would most likely not perform like mine are doing. I recently bought another Longhorn bull to replace my other sense I have been retaining heifers. This young bull may have the best rate of gain in the Longhorn industry at 205 days he weighed 631lbs so hopefully he adds even more genetics that I am looking for. I plan on using him in June so time will tell.

I really do appreciate all the replies and opinions

 

[wacocowboy]

Yes BM and LH will work and it works really well if you use foundation BM bloodlines. I know some who run Casey and L-Bar bulls on LH cows.

 

[Big Cheese]

We have had Longhorn cattle for 4 years now and we are finally getting calves out of our heifers we retained from them. We breed our Longhorns to Charolais bulls and we kept those half breed heifers and bred them back to a Charolais. All of the calves out of our half breeds that we have had so far have come out solid white (exception of one yellow and one gray) and are growing exceptionally. Any heifer you retain with your cross will be a good cow for you and I believe the cross will work very well. My advice though is to not go back and breed with an Angus. The black that comes with Angus brings out the chrome that comes with Longhorns. We have bred some of our half breeds with an Angus bull and we will see how much chrome shows up in the 1/2 Angus 1/4 Charolais 1/4 Longhorn calves in the fall but I think you could have a lot with your cross. I would go back and breed your heifers to another Beefmaster bull. Those 3/4 Beefmaster 1/4 Longhorn calves will grow like crazy and will/should come out solid color.

However, no matter what you do I think you have a great plan. No matter what people say Longhorn cattle are very good cattle and cost less to feed and keep up like you said. Your going to always have haters that are going to hate on your Longhorns but they will work out and be good cattle for you for a long time. Our calves do very well here and we have buyers at our barn that really want our calves when they come through.