Murray Greys

[Backbone Ranch]

It has been a fairly mild summer for us. Our pastures are green and the grass is still growing. We were lucky enough to get 4.2 inches of rain with this last round of storms. The cows are holding good condition and are raising some big calves right now. We will probably wean them sometime in October. We are still wanting to grow our numbers, so we will be keeping about 50% of our heifer calves as replacements.
This bull calf was born on March 14th at 78 lbs. He is sired by our primary herd bull, BB Uncle Tony, and he is out of a 10 year old cow. We will be keeping him to use on our heifers and as a back-up to Tony.

This heifer was born on February 27th, 2015 at 76 lbs. She is one of my favorite heifer calves from that calf crop. She is sired by Cadella Park Golden Boy, a foundation Murray Grey bull that was imported to the US in the 70s. On her mother's side, she goes back to a Michaelong bull, a bull from the founding Murray Grey stud. She is 17 months old in the photo. We really like her femininity.

This cow was born in the fall of 2009. She is 50% Murray Grey x 50% Angus. She has produced some very nice calves for us every year. Her first bull calf back in 2012 weaned out at 604 lbs. We have weighed her several times and she weighs in between 1450 and 1550 lbs, depending on the time of year. She is raising a really solid heifer calf this year.

This particular cow was born in the fall of 2008. She is a granddaughter of JOPA Elation Power. She has only produced two heifers for us so far, but her 2016 heifer calf is one of the best in the calf crop. We AIed her to Balmoral Elation, a Murray Grey bull that was imported into the US from Australia in the early 80s. We used some sexed semen on her and we are hoping for a heifer calf.

Below is another granddaughter of JOPA Elation Power. She was born in the spring of 2011. Her current heifer calf is extremely deep bodied, wide, and feminine. We also AIed her to Balmoral Elation with some sexed semen this past June, but we are hoping for a bull from her.

This last photo shows our Holstein. She is raising an orphan (grey bull calf) along with her own calf. Her calf is the dark heifer. Her calf is pictured at a week old and had an 86 lb birth weight. The sire of the dark heifer is a silver Murray Grey bull.

 

[M-5]

great pics, The Holstein looks sad with the marking around her eyes

 

[Bestoutwest]

Great looking cattle, they look really nice as always.

 

[frieghttrain]

I really like that 506. Did you get the Holstein for milking?

 

[Williamsv]

Great pictures of beautiful cattle! I always enjoy seeing yours.

 

[Kingfisher]

What is that weed/crop in that 3rd pic? Have you had any calves out of those new Bulls yet? Thanks for your post.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

I really like that 506. Did you get the Holstein for milking?

We purchased her in case we had an orphaned calf. We calve out the cows in the spring and heifers in the fall. We wanted to have two dairy cows, one calving in each season, in case we had any issues with the other mamas. We have a Guernsey x Murray Grey cow calving in the spring that will happily raise two calves and now we have the Holstein that will raise two calves that calves in the fall. In this particular case, we had a heifer calve who didn't have enough milk for her calf; we grafted her baby onto the Holstein a few days after she calved.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

What is that weed/crop in that 3rd pic? Have you had any calves out of those new Bulls yet? Thanks for your post.

Last year, we got over 80 inches of rain, when the norm is between 30 and 35 inches. The creek that borders our property rose out of its banks and our river bottom was under 6 or 8 feet of water. It brought millions of seeds into the pastures. We have always called this plant "water weed", but I do not know the proper term for it. The cattle will not eat it, but sheep will strip the plant of its leaves.

We have not had calves yet out of the bulls I mentioned above. We are due to have AI calves from Balmoral Elation, JOPA Elation Power, and Cadella Park Golden Boy next March. We have had three calves from Cadella Park Golden Boy (sire of 506 heifer), a bull calf from Monterey Marshall (kept intact and sold as a herd bull), and a heifer out of MCC Trigger's Champion (we will retain her to continue to grow our numbers). Below are photos of Golden Boy, Trigger's Champion, and Monterey Marshall. All three of these bulls were born in the 1970s and 1980s. We haven't had many calves from any of them yet, but we have been extremely pleased with these first few that have hit the ground.

Cadella Park Golden Boy- He goes back to some of the great bulls in the Murray Grey breed, including Thologolong Caesar. He had a weight of 2,330 lbs at 4 1/2 years of age. In 1974, at 26 months of age, he became the first Grand Champion Murray Grey bull at the first National Murray Grey Show and Sale.

MCC Trigger's Champion- He too is a bull with a tremendous pedigree. We really like his capacity, length, and his dark coloration. We want to add a bit more of that dark coloration into our herd. His scrotal circumference looks really small here, but it was quite cold when the photo was taken; I have two other photos of him and his scrotal circumference is absolutely fine.

Monterey Marshall- This bull was born in the late 80s. He scored a perfect 10 on the Igenity tenderness test, putting him on the top 4% of all cattle in the US for that particular trait. We have only had one calf out of him so far, but his 2015 bull calf was the best of the calf crop. We intend to use him more in the coming years.