Murray Grey Bulls

[Backbone Ranch]

We turned out the bulls with the cows today. We put 25 in with our primary herd bull, BB Uncle Tony, and the other 11 went in with in with our new bull. Thought that I would share some pictures of them.
This bull is BB Uncle Tony. He is a 6 year old bull that was born on our place, and he has been breeding cows every year since he was a yearling. He has left us with some phenomenal calves, and we are hoping that he still has a number of years ahead of him.

And this is the bull that I bought about 2 1/2 weeks ago. He is a 3 year old purebred Murray Grey bull. We are breeding him to a number of Tony daughters, as well as some half siblings to Tony this year. We hope that he will give us some darker pigmentation in our females, in addition to some genetic diversity. We owned his dam for a handful of years, and she raised some awesome calves. I am excited to see how his calves look.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Nice, thanks for sharing.

 

[Nesikep]

Both look good The waiting is always painfully long though! Over here Hector has been busy, 19 cows bred in 11 days

 

[jehosofat]

Dang, I like em both, but I really like your new one.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

Thick an deep bodied....

 

[MtnCows93]

wow what a meat wagon

 

[WalnutCrest]

MG are top notch cattle.

 

[southernultrablack]

Nice!

 

[farmerjan]

Very nice thick bulls. Reminds me of some old style angus I saw as a kid. Sure would like to see that kind of muscling on s.ome now. Just got a young Limi this year that has some nice muscling in the hindquarters. I'm not a big fan of limi's, their dispositions were not great years ago, but this bull just might be the ticket to put some weight and muscling on the calves. Gonna put him in with about 15 cows at one place this year, he's 15 months, and see what we get in the spring next year.

I wouldn't hesitate to get a MG like yours if there was one close. Crossing with the black cattle would work out

 

[frieghttrain]

Very nice thick bulls. Reminds me of some old style angus I saw as a kid. Sure would like to see that kind of muscling on s.ome now. Just got a young Limi this year that has some nice muscling in the hindquarters. I'm not a big fan of limi's, their dispositions were not great years ago, but this bull just might be the ticket to put some weight and muscling on the calves. Gonna put him in with about 15 cows at one place this year, he's 15 months, and see what we get in the spring next year.

I wouldn't hesitate to get a MG like yours if there was one close. Crossing with the black cattle would work out

I hope that bull works for you thank you for trying limousin. Darn good bulls there Backboneranch

 

[farmerjan]

We've used Limi before, but now that they have "black" it is alot easier to use them and still be able to get the better prices at the markets. It drives me nuts to see good "colored" cattle get short changed at sale time, and they sure do in this area. The thing about the Limi's in the past is they were more high strung, and the cows would get you if you went in the field with their calves. My son worked for this same registered herd years ago, and would get the calf between the tractor and the fence, to keep the cow off him when he was tagging the calves. I helped a few times. I'm fine with protective, but kill you ; NOOOOOOO. Never had any calving issues, they come out long and lean .... like a limousine.....but too high strung. I know that the disposition is something that has been worked on. I have bred several of our own cows AI to limi's over the years....

But I would like one of those MG's.... and not the british car either!!!!!!!

 

[Backbone Ranch]

Thank you for the feedback everybody! We are very happy with both of these bulls. We've got two or three REALLY nice bull calves coming on in this year's calf crop, so we will likely have some younger bulls coming on to replace these two in the next handful of years. We were hoping for some darker pigmentation because it reduces the likelihood of our cattle getting pinkeye and sunburned teats. We definitely prefer the silver color for our environment, but we can still breed for silver cattle that have darker noses, hooves, and pigment around the eyes. The darker pigmentation is a breed characteristic, but because our cattle have been bred silver for the past 25 years or so, we are starting to lose a bit of the darker pigmentation.

Nesikep- You'll have to let me know how Hector does for you. I really liked the photos that you've posted of him. The bulls have been busy here too. Tony had six cows in his group come into heat within a 24 hour window, and the new bull has had two or three come into heat in the past day.

Farmerjan- A Murray Grey crosses really well over black cows. We've got a handful of Murray Grey x Angus cows that are 50% and 75% Murray Grey. They are some of my favorite cows.