Angus Cattle Shower":cs2pioap said:
I went back and reread my posts, and I'm not sure where you came up with the number 650. I did guesstimate them to be about 150 lbs each smaller than what they actually weighed. I guess we should have weighed them all separately instead. They did however average 805 lbs. I don't know exactly what they weighed at weaning.
We currently have 1/4 to 1/8 Simme in most of our cows with the other portion being angus, and we too wean lots of 550 to 650 lb calves. But I think maybe you are comparing apples to oranges here. As I understand it, Herefords are a smaller breed, and especially depending on what blood lines of Angus you are comparing to. There are large and small cattle in every breed, that's what makes the breed. If every cow of every breed weighed 1500 lbs there would not be much diversity, or much use in crossing breeds now would there.
Now, on to Dun's question. I justify my opinion of not AIing on the heifers for this reason. I don't know what kind of calves these cows will raise. I'd like to put them on my dad or brother's bull (free) and see what kind of calf they raise before I go throwing $50- ????? a piece at them trying to AI them. I do plan on AIing the ones that raise good calves later to build my own part of the herd. Maybe some would jump right in and do it the first time, but not me, I'm an original MO boy...Show Me what kind of calf you're going to raise before I go breeding you to a high powered bull. Just my $.02
Now, as for the Simme bull we are leaning towards. He is a 14 month old weighing around 1200lbs. He is homozygous black and polled. He had an actual BW of 78lbs. He had a 255 day weight of 805lbs. Here are his numbers: CE - 8.6 BW - .3 WW - 26.4 YW - 51.7 MCE - 5.2 MM - 7.8 MWW - 21. I have a pic but not on this computer. He is a state fair reserve champion.
I did some calculating last night using an "Across Breed EPD Conversion Chart" and theoretically, this new Simme bull should be an easier calver and throw lighter BW calves than the purebred Angus bulls we are currently using.