New Heifers

[El_Putzo]

Just bought my first set of new heifers. They aren't spectacular, but easy calver's anyway which is very important to me. I wasn't really looking for registered heifers but came upon these at a price too good to pass up. I'm thinking about breeding them to our angus bull the first go round then to a black simmental (We're thinking about getting) then the 3rd time after I find out how good of momma's they are, maybe AI to some high powered Hereford bull and save some more heifers. Here's the numbers on my new girls:

Go here:

http://www.herfnet.com/online/cgi-bin/i ... 2B3C2B3C3A

then type in this string of reg. #s 42435497,42435615,42435510,42435570

that should bring all 4 of them up at once.

I don't have pics yet as the girls haven't been delivered but let me know what ya think.

 

[certherfbeef]

No pictures there. Unless I did something wrong...just epd's

 

[El_Putzo]

Like I said, I don't have any pics yet as the girls haven't made it to my dad's place yet. I'll get some pics with the digital camera when they are delivered this weekend.

 

[El_Putzo]

Finally got some pics of my first set of ladies. They averaged 805lbs at 16 months, but I think you can tell by the last pic that the one in the back on the right is bigger. I'd guess she weighs around 850-875lbs, funny thing is she has the worst WW and YW EPDs of the group. Makes ya wonder about those EPDs huh?!? :lol:

 

[CowCop]

Congrats on your ladies James~! They look great.

Since you have 4, do you have names for them ?

This year we are naming EVERYTHING after the Boston Red Sox~!

 

[greenwillowherefords]

In my opinion, those are some nice heifers, with some depth of body to them. I'd guess the biggest one heavier than you might think. Congrats.

 

[El_Putzo]

Thanks guys.

Not to toot my own horn here but, I thought I did a fairly decent job of picking out my first group of heifers by myself. I've helped pick a few out of my dad's yearlings to put back in the herd but they were never mine and I never did it by myself. An added bonus: I pretty much got them for a song!! I guess it pays to go on the internet and find your local breeders. Funny thing is, none of them had advertised and most of them said they hadn't even thought about selling any. I guess I'm just a sweet talker. Ok, I'm done bragging now. Sorry, I just have a really good, proud feeling right now about the whole deal. :D

 

[mwj]

Was 850# at 16 months a typo??? That seems very small for cattle that age!!!!!!!!!!!
your friend
Mike

 

[El_Putzo]

Nope, that's right on the weights. These are all out of low birthweight, easy calvers. Plus they didn't get creep feed. No feed until after weening. I realize these are not big calves for their age. That is not why I bought them. They should be very easy calvers but their weaning an yearling weights are not to good as you can tell if you look at the EPDs in the post above. I will be breeding these to a Black Simmental bull and the calves should pick up their size from him while being mostly black baldies.

 

[dun]

I don't recall from when I originally looked at their EPDs, but what is thier calving ease?
BTW, I don't think that is a particularly low weight for a 16 month old. If you're looking at a mature weight of around 1000-1100 lbs, it sems like that would be just about on target. I realize some folks look for those big cows and push their heifers, but a heifer raised on a diet of forage without all of the creep and grain will generally develop into a better forage processor then ones that have a lot of supplement. Plus you don't have the problem of possible fat deposition in the mamrys to reduce milk production.
Are you planning on using the Simmenthal bull for their first calves?
One thing to also consider, if they don;t have a potential for milk or high weaning weights of their calves, no matter what you breed them to you'll probably be disappointed come sale time. Calves that are not fed up to their potential are usually pretty rangy looking thing and don't sell well.
Just some observations. But they are some darn good looking heifers.

dun

 

[El_Putzo]

Thanks Dun.

I am shooting for a mature weight of around 1100 lbs. I am going by kind of the same thinking that you are Dun. That is that a smaller framed cow will usually take less feed and supplement to maintain. As far as the BWs, they are: 2.8, 3.4, 4.3 and 5.5 which puts them in the 30% to 80% range. The CED EPDs are .3, .5, 2.8, and 3.3 . Which puts them in the 10% to 40% range. I guess that last BW isn't the greatest but that is also the biggest calf of the bunch and the best looking one too, I'd guess her mature weight will be closer to 1200. I think I picked some good ones for calving ease as these are all granddaughters of Wrangler 19D.

As far as breeding them, I haven't decided if I want to breed them to our existing black angus bull that has a high BW or breed them to our future black simmental bull which we are looking for on with a low BW. I wasn't even thinking about breeding to the simmental on the heifers until I talked to a woman who raises both registered sims and herefords and she told me that when she crosses them to use in her commercial herd, the hereford heifers bred to her simme bull actually have less trouble calving than the heifers bred to a hereford bull. I thought that was very interesting. Maybe it's just her bulls but that seems bass ackwards if you know what I mean.

I'd hate to risk losing a calf or even a heifer on the first go round just because I got greedy and wanted a bigger calf out of my heifers.

What do you all think?

Oh, and to answer CowCops question.... No, I don't have names for them. We just identify them by their eartags. We've always had around 70 cows and that's just to many to name IMHO.

 

[dun]

If you think that's too many to name, you should hang around some the dairys around here. Milking 150 head and all or nearly all of them have names along with tag numbers.
One dairy uses some actual names, but a lot of them are named there tag number.
It'sa riot to see him step out the parlor door and call out a number and have that cow come up to go into the parlor. There are alwasy a few that just ignore him. When he says "128, don;t make me come out there and get you" and 128 will burn rubber to get to the door I almost fall down laughing.

dun

 

[jt]

If you think that's too many to name, you should hang around some the dairys around here. Milking 150 head and all or nearly all of them have names along with tag numbers.
One dairy uses some actual names, but a lot of them are named there tag number.
It'sa riot to see him step out the parlor door and call out a number and have that cow come up to go into the parlor. There are alwasy a few that just ignore him. When he says "128, don;t make me come out there and get you" and 128 will burn rubber to get to the door I almost fall down laughing.

dun

yep.. that would be something to see and worth the price of admission.

jt


btw... el putzo those are some nice heifers and i agree that they will be 1100+# cows... maybe even 1200, to me that is just about a perfect size.

 

[El_Putzo]

That guy must be a magician becuase that would be on heck of a trick!

So what's your opinion on the sire of my heifers? Simme with low BW or Angus with high BW?

 

[dun]

That guy must be a magician becuase that would be on heck of a trick!

So what's your opinion on the sire of my heifers? Simme with low BW or Angus with high BW?

None of the above!

dun

 

[El_Putzo]

Sorry Dun, those are my only choices unless we go with a different breed of bull (highly unlikely since we have some Simme blood in our cows already) or AI them which I don't really want to do as heifers. I thought about AI them after they've had 2 or 3 calves each but only AI the ones that raise exceptional calves and try to keep more heifers out of that group.

 

[dun]

Sorry Dun, those are my only choices unless we go with a different breed of bull (highly unlikely since we have some Simme blood in our cows already) or AI them which I don't really want to do as heifers. I thought about AI them after they've had 2 or 3 calves each but only AI the ones that raise exceptional calves and try to keep more heifers out of that group.

If you already AI some, there are some excellent resonably priced bulls that have low BW and high calving ease, aong with good growth and muscle, etc.
I know exactly who I would use, but that's because we use him on almost all of our smaller heifers.
But since we've alwasy AI 100% anyway it's not a big deal for us.
But each of our situations is different.

dun

 

[El_Putzo]

We do 0% AI right now but I do have a neighbor who AI's his own dairy cattle. I'm sure he'd come and do it for me if I had them synchronized. I think I'll wait to AI so that I can decide if they are all good mommas first.

 

[El_Putzo]

By the way Dun, which bull would you use if I do decide to AI????

It's ok, you can tell me, I can keep a secret. :lol:

 

[dun]

We do 0% AI right now but I do have a neighbor who AI's his own dairy cattle. I'm sure he'd come and do it for me if I had them synchronized. I think I'll wait to AI so that I can decide if they are all good mommas first.

I still have never figured out what the stygma is of AIing heifers. Rahter then take a chance on an unknown "nick" between the heifers and existing bulls, I'ld much rather know what to expect from a heifer by having the proof on the ground. But of course, even when we buy an older cow, we still breed them to a known bull to see what they are capable of.
I'm not criticizing, I just have never learned to have an unexpressed thought.

dun