Need advice on a terminal bull please

Willicd

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I live in the texas panhandle and farm/ranch ASIDE from my full time shift work job. The only reason i mention this is because it helped dictate the type cattle i run. I am rarely around when they are calving and some pastures are very rugged and grass is sparse. For this reason I use corriente or longhorn cows and breed to angus or charolais bulls. I am retaining heifers now to start a more viable commercial "beef" herd since the market is down and you cant give away something with LH influence now. Anyway, all of these heifers are black or creme colored, polled, and have DECENT muscle. I need to know what the best breed of bull would be to maximize the black hide and muscle on the terminal calves? I am thinking limousin if i can find one. Would it be detrimental to breed back to another angus?
 
Breed them back to Charolais or breed them to a blk limo or black sim bull. That said I think you can breed them to a red (fullblooded) limo bull to get more muscle and still have a great marketable calf. They'll be either black or red calf anyways.
 
I haven't seen what black lim does over longhorn but the red does a pretty good job of covering it up. With angus it tends to pop back up for a few generations in the form of linebacks.
 
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I feel that some of you didnt read the post. I already breed to angus and charolais bulls and i am happy with the offspring for commercial cows in my environment. What i need to know is what type of bull for these crossbred cows to maximize beef traits so i dont have to sell calves at 300#.
 
I like the idea of a red Limi for terminal calves. I find that the red ones seem to have more breed character (beyond coat color) and for the most part pass on nice heavy muscling. Are you looking for a live bull, or AI suggestions? Does your market prefer blacks? There are also plenty of good homo black Limi bulls out there that should do the trick. Wulf Cattle sells about 300 Limi bulls every spring and has plenty of AI bulls that would fit the bill to. There are also several breeders down your way who would have what you are looking for too. :2cents:
 
300lbs? Thinks you better find a better bull that can boost WW up. Nothing's wrong with breeding back to Charolais for 3/4 Char calves. Most black limousins didn't impress me much, see how they're less muscled than fullblooded limos. But since your cows are already black, you can breed them to fullblooded limousin bull and get mostly black calves.
 
My only major concern with using a Fullblood Limi bull is that most are fine-boned for the mass they carry. I would worry that since the cows are percentage longhorn (also finer boned), you would end up with the same in the calves. They are also harder to come by, especially if you aren't looking to AI. There are plenty of black Limis out there that have the performance you are looking for, I just prefer the reds. Look at the Coleman, Wulf, Hunt, Spring Creeks, ROM"N programs (Just a couple off the top of my head).
 
Muddy":lxd2st52 said:
300lbs? Thinks you better find a better bull that can boost WW up. Nothing's wrong with breeding back to Charolais for 3/4 Char calves. Most black limousins didn't impress me much, see how they're less muscled than fullblooded limos. But since your cows are already black, you can breed them to fullblooded limousin bull and get mostly black calves.

:nod:
 
I'm doing the same thing you are doing Willicd I'm breeding Charolais bulls to Longhorn or Corriente cows and keeping the Half Breeds as cows. We are doing that to breed them.back to the Charolais and get a 3/4 Charolais calf that you won't even know it has Longhorn in it and will wean heavy. The Half Longhorn Half beef cow makes a really good momma cow.

To answer your question what I would do is breed back to Charolais because that is what I like but if you want black hide Angus would work good as well being 3/4 beef chrome may not show up but if you breed to a Angus it has a greater chance then being bred to the Charolais.

I haven't seen any Limo mixes personally but I've seen pictures they don't look that bad and we have some Black Balancer crossed with Longhorns that look really good as well so that may not be a bad choice as well. But I would stick with the two breeds you know and not go out and bring in new breeds. Just my opinion....I think you are on the right track to a great herd of cows...especially if you stick with the Charolais lol they work better with Longhorns with my experience
 
I dont sell 6mo old calves that weigh 300# i sell 4mo calves that weigh 300#! I have 2 good registerd charolais bulls and an angus composite i use on heifers. I sell light not because they are inferior animals, but because i dont care to be docked for an "inferior" mindset toward them. I am wanting a bull i can put on the retained heifers and wean at 6-8 mo and 500-700#. I was looking for black hide because thats what brings a premium in this area.
 
One problem: your creme colored cows may throws grey calves instead of black. Still I thinks char and red limousin will beef them very good and they make up in pounds at the sale. But if you're stuck on black hide, just go with black Simmental. They're good animals from what I seen.
 
Willicd":39x5n4qa said:
I live in the texas panhandle and farm/ranch ASIDE from my full time shift work job. The only reason i mention this is because it helped dictate the type cattle i run. I am rarely around when they are calving and some pastures are very rugged and grass is sparse. For this reason I use corriente or longhorn cows and breed to angus or charolais bulls. I am retaining heifers now to start a more viable commercial "beef" herd since the market is down and you cant give away something with LH influence now. Anyway, all of these heifers are black or creme colored, polled, and have DECENT muscle. I need to know what the best breed of bull would be to maximize the black hide and muscle on the terminal calves? I am thinking limousin if i can find one. Would it be detrimental to breed back to another angus?


Brangus
 
Willicd":qvkjn9b5 said:
I dont sell 6mo old calves that weigh 300# i sell 4mo calves that weigh 300#! I have 2 good registerd charolais bulls and an angus composite i use on heifers. I sell light not because they are inferior animals, but because i dont care to be docked for an "inferior" mindset toward them. I am wanting a bull i can put on the retained heifers and wean at 6-8 mo and 500-700#. I was looking for black hide because thats what brings a premium in this area.

If your wanting that then I would stick with the Charolais. They will wean that heavy and you will still have the black hide influence with the grays. If you can wean calves as heavy as your wanting then if they bring premium or not you will be fine. Black hide is dominate here as well but our solid whites and yellows sell right with them. You can never go wrong with Charolais.

I don't know if that first sentence was a jab at me or not but I hope it wasn't. What is the bloodlines of your Charolais Bulls? They sound look good Bulls.

I like CBs advice as well Brangus wouldn't be a bad bull to use as well if your wanting to keep the black hide but I still think Charolais is your best choice.
 
Willicd":oi2smyfb said:
I live in the texas panhandle and farm/ranch ASIDE from my full time shift work job. The only reason i mention this is because it helped dictate the type cattle i run. I am rarely around when they are calving and some pastures are very rugged and grass is sparse. For this reason I use corriente or longhorn cows and breed to angus or charolais bulls. I am retaining heifers now to start a more viable commercial "beef" herd since the market is down and you cant give away something with LH influence now. Anyway, all of these heifers are black or creme colored, polled, and have DECENT muscle. I need to know what the best breed of bull would be to maximize the black hide and muscle on the terminal calves? I am thinking limousin if i can find one. Would it be detrimental to breed back to another angus?


If it were me instead of retaining heifers that are longhorn, corriente influence I'd get some nice be brangus cows.
Jim Saul in Turkey has some really nice cattle( Steiner genetics) and sells heifers and might talk him out of some cows. He owns the feed store there in Turkey, so he easy to find.
It'd be a lot quicker start on getting good cows
Just my 2cents
 
Nothing wrong with half longhorn cows, and their calves will be 3/4 beef anyways and they won't show any hints of being part longhorn. No reason for him to get rid of half longhorn cows at all.
 
Why get rid of something that is obviously working for him? Having that Longhorn influence in you cow is a very good thing especially with the pasture land he says he has.
 

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