New Longhorn calf

[Frankie]

Magpie said:

r/w bull - platform scale weight on 5-14-05 717 lbs, hip height 50", born May 10, 2004, bw: 65 lbs, hip height 26". WDA as of that day, 1.95 according to cattlemax

Let's be clear here. You're telling us you have a yearling (May '04-May '05) bull that weighs 717 lbs? And that you consider him a good prospect for a herd sire?

the red and white bull is the current top of my own little beef program, how on earth can his type be a threat to crossbreeding?????

I don't understand what "threat" you're talking about?

yes, other people before me have much better weights, but then they have spent many many years more at this, than i.

And this is why breed associations maintain records. So a new breeder can build on other breeder's experiences and genetics to be successful.

why in on earth would i, or for that matter anyone choose the black steer type to use in any breeding program, let alone a crossbreeding one?

You're the one with the black Longhorn bull that you're so proud of. My question is why would anyone use the red one, if he is actually a 700+ pound yearling.

the red and white young bull is what is my mental picture, of what i would consider a beefy style young longhorn bull suitable for crossbreeding purposes. i am working on changing the color pattern. his pedigree is full of showstock both top and bottom.

Well, we all have our opinions. Until I'm absolutely sure that you have a 700+ yearling, I really can't comment. As for colors, you said in an earlier post that you never knew what you'd get in breeding Longhorns.

and why would you think that my red/white young bull would hurt the epd's of putting low birthweight calves on the ground for crossbreeding, because he, and my black senior herd sire, is what i am talking about when i talk about a beefy style longhorn bull for crossbreeding?

Only purebred, registered cattle have EPDs. I sincerely doubt that your bull is going to be breeding that kind of cattle, therefore he's not likely to "hurt" anyone's EPDs.

i do agree that taking extremes in anything is not good. that is why i am comfortable with my 1780 lb black bull with a hip height of 58" that you have already seen pics of.

there are more than just several of the 1 ton registered longhorn bulls in the longhorn industry. these represent the extreme of what can and could be done.

A 2000 pound mature beef bull is not an extreme.

but, taking bulls consistantly well past the one ton mark, poses problems that other beef breeds have already found. i do know just enough to avoid that problem which is why i cull my bull calves that weigh over 70 lbs. (culled one, that was 73 lbs bw out of a 1st time heifer, his pedigree was 1/2 show stock and half horn, this gave me a great body but took too much horn off.)

Please provide information showing that taking bulls over 2000 poses problems for other beef breeds? The beef semen company catalogs are full of bulls with mature weights over 2000 lbs. I wouldn't step back from using a bull with that kind of mature weight. In the beef business we're selling pounds of meat, not color, not horn.

as for the one bull that was rented out for 2 months, for one time to a known local breeder, this paid for his hay/minerals for almost 13 months according to our current monthly average (we took the monthly averages for the year of 2004) costs per 1000 animal unit of hard costs.

this same bull was taken in to our local a.i. station and semen tested at about 15 months of age, he was good enough to freeze, we did collect one jump from him, quarentined, then put with our bred females after his quarentine. by this time we had just gotten in our new solid black bull that i wanted to breed with instead)

sold him this may 1st as a breeding bull for a registered longhorn herd just getting started in arizonia after i made sure to question two local vets about the dangers of his "outside job". and made sure that i was not putting their herd at risk by selling him to them... but both vets knew the man and his herd, and knew of no problems with them that could be a safety factor.

the new people are ticked pink with him, love his puppy dog dispostion, and i have tried all that i know to do, to not put their livestock at risk with him.

this is very important to us, because we are a certified t.b. and brucellosis free herd. we simply can not afford to mess with our certification. (i did discuss at some length with the same vet that did our t.b. and brucellosis testing for us, before we ever rented the bull out.)

Thanks for the clarification.

all young bulls that are sold by us are sold with them being taken by myself personally to the a.i. station, and semen checked at approx. 14 months of age. (my senior herd sire was done shortly before he ever left his old home.)

if there is a problem, then that bull is put into a freezer, or banded. he is not sold to the customer.

i had checked one young bull, at 14 months old, before i even had a customer for him. thereby saving myself the potential embarrassment with anybody.

You do know that just because a bull passes a test at 14 months old, that doesn't mean that at 18 months he can pass? A BSE within 30 days of a sale is a generally accepted procedure.

he did not meet the a.i. requirements,, and he went directly to the freezer, and am extra carefull to watch that line, if this happens a second time to that line, that dam is gone herself, to hamburger heaven.

Which AI standards do you strive for?

as for the cow you were talking about in a previous post, about her sometimes thowing spotted calves,, that is easy.

they did not selectively save any of the solid colored heifers from her in your example. it still could take several generations to try to lock in a solid color. they simply did not follow thru into the necessary next steps as presented in your example.

He didn't follow through because he's a commercial cattleman who had the one Longhorn cow because he liked to look at her. They kept every daughter she had and even after two or three generations of using Angus bulls, they'd get a spotted calf and it would bring less money than their solid black calves. IMO, it doesn't matter why it happened; it matters that it cost him money every few years.

this statement leads me to believe, that it is an "accepted norm" to have to pull continental cattle calves. instead of working on a problem with the cattle they already had. they simply turned to a different breed that would give them relief from the "calf pulling" ...for them, a simplier solution.

I'm sure the Continental breeders would disagree with your comment. Some breeds are easier pulls than others, I've been told. My limited experience with them was enough to make me buy Angus bulls. But I think today most Continental breeds have lines of "easy calving bulls". That particular cattleman was wanting to get the horns off his cattle, too, and the Angus bull did that for him.

horn length is the one thing that is measured in this breed, the show stock people are willing to give up a little horn length in order to get the beefy show bodies that win. but, they always working on horn all the time also.

yes, itla is very much working on gathering epd's for the longhorns, but it is a slow process as the old timers don't feel the need for it.. if it ain't broke don't fix it syndrome thingie.

but the newbies to the breed are going for it. and few of these newbies are the 'big boys' with the larger herds, and larger pocketbooks.

So we should expect EPDs on Longhorns soon?

but my personal take on this would be to try to use simple common sense, as long as you do not go to extremes, and keep records of what you are doing, use culling, you can avoid this particular hazard.

So you don't have any reliable information on whether the beef type Longhorns are easier calving than traditional Longhorns? You can use common sense, but you can't dictate what kinds of cattle the bull will be used on. All the research that I've read tells us the more a calf weighs, the more likely there will be calving difficulties. And you say you've got at least one calf that weighed more than you liked.

like i keep saying... beef is not the main focus of my herd but only one of several egg baskets,

and who said i was trying to "breed more meat onto a breed),,, me, myself and i, am trying to breed one whole breed? i dont think so, grins

but i am trying 3-4 animals with the beef style. i have to be able to put something in my own freezer, and deal with extra bull calves that keep popping up. this makes excellent use of dams with fuller maternal bodies.

So what is the "main" focus of your herd? You have bought an almost solid black bull. I believe that was to go with the market trend of beef cattle. It isn't the traditional Longhorn color/marking. You keep referring to a more "beefy" type animal. That would lead most sensible people to think you're trying to breed more "beef" into your herd, not necessarily the breed.

exactly my point... you just said what i apparently didn't get across in my post.

No, in your post you said they were such good terminal cross cattle they almost disappeared. That's very different than the fact that ranchers discovered the smaller percentage of Longhorn blood a cow had, the better her calf would perform.

why is the longhorn propaganda any worse than the angus or anybody else's propaganda?

It's not, but it should be viewed as propaganda. Everyone should read every breed association's information with an eye for facts and references. Some breeds actually provide references for their claims.

ok,, first you get onto me for promoting beefier longhorns, that i am doing a diservice to the longhorn breed by doing so.

I have never said Longhorns don't have a place in the beef business. I have stated that there are people who have developed a niche market for their cattle and are doing well. But, according to posts I've read online, that by trying to turn the Longhorn into a "beef" breed, you will damage it's reputation for easy calving.

now you are saying that my bull is too little to make a difference. you can't have it both ways.

either he is or he isn't too beefy for the longhorn breed...

In my opinion, based on what I've see traditional Longhorn breeders write, he's too big for the Longhorn breed. From my experience in the beef business, he's too small for serious commercial use. Therein lies the dilemma of the Longhorn breeder.

i had mentioned that i was treating my business as a business, so you hit me with "because they love the animals.",,

now, if i had said i was a hobby breeder, then you would have hit me with the fact that i cannot be taken seriously because i'm not treating this as a business.

no matter which i said, business or hobby, you would have countered with the opposite tact. a no win situation for me either way.

No, I mentioned that "they love the animals" because they aren't in it for the money. That doesn't reflect on you at all. Most of the cattlemen in my county probably haven't actually made money over the last 15 years, but they love the lifestyle. Hopefully, with the cattle prices today, they are actually making money. I'd guess that the majority posting on this board don't make a living from their cattle. I don't.

now... do you understand why longhorn colors are so unpreditable and much more challenging than what you would be dealing with in your commercial breeds?

I'm sorry. Did I give you the impression that I cared why Longhorn colors were unpredictable? It's irrelevant to me. The bottom line is that buyers at the sale barns will discount spotted calves as Longhorns, whether they are or not.

that must mean i have only one real longhorn in my herd. seeing as how i bought a 6 month old heifer in '03 from the WR herd to use for blending.

she has just given me a solid colored dun heifer that will be perfect to breed back to my senior solid black bull. the dun heifer's dam is light red/yellow? with a little white, and lightly brindle.

.....this must mean that her heifer is only a half-real longhorn then, and the next generation down will be a quarter-real longhorn...
sorry,

in that particular paragragh you were actually being nice. so please take those two sentences above as silliness, and not in seriousness.

OK

and by talking about this in an open forum, just maybe, i can get someone else, to think out of the box......

Question: how many sides to a box do you see?

trick question you ask??

my answer: i see four sides, plus an inside, an outside, a topside, a bottomside, , my side, your side, wrong side, right side, leftside, upside down, rightside up, a kitty corner side, a catty corner side, a round 2 it side..... etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum

respectfully,

magpie

Ah, the box again. Since I like to know where I am before I change direction, I need more information. What kind of box? If it's a plain old square cardboard box, is the lid open or closed? If closed, I see four sides and a top since it's setting on the bottom. Is it a small box I can hold in my hand? Then I see four sides, a top and a bottom. Is it a huge box setting on the warehouse floor, then I only see one side...at a time. Using your imagination is a wonderful thing, but in the beef business, we're still selling the most quality meat for the most we can get for it. Imagining that your 700+ lb yearling bull (if that's a correct figure) will sire calves that will grow well enough to be profitable in the commercial cattle busines is only that: imagination.

 

[ollie]

I have deleted more evidence of my timid nature.

 

[Campground Cattle]

Well put Ollie.

 

[Ryan]

I am going to put my 2cents in here. I have been in the longhorn business for 17years. The ranch I work for has "beefier" type longhorns, because we feel there are 2 types of cattle: Beef and Dairy. And Longhorns definantly not a dairy breed. We strive to develop structurally correct animals, with capacity and as much natural muscle that we can get. However, with that said we do not weigh many of our animals, unless we weigh them at a show (which is now mandatory for the junior animals at all Autobahn Youth Shows). So, all of my thoughts and comments on weights are based on a knowing the weights of a few animals and comparing them to others.

We raise World Champion animals. Our Herdsire was World Grand Champion, and we 4 females in the last 5 years be atleast World Reserve Grand Champion Female (3 of which were World Grand Champion Females). For a list of our championships you can go to the frontpage of http://www.sanddollarranch.com I am not advertising, I am just stating this information to give a little background on the type of animals we raise.

Magpie said:

r/w bull - platform scale weight on 5-14-05 717 lbs, hip height 50", born May 10, 2004, bw: 65 lbs, hip height 26". WDA as of that day, 1.95 according to cattlemax

Let's be clear here. You're telling us you have a yearling (May '04-May '05) bull that weighs 717 lbs? And that you consider him a good prospect for a herd sire?

No. We had a moderate frame bull that was 2nd in his class at the TLBAA World Show. He weighed 1003 lbs at that World Show and was 1 year and 1 week old. So, I would consider a 717lbs yearling would be considered small.

Magpie said:

i do agree that taking extremes in anything is not good. that is why i am comfortable with my 1780 lb black bull with a hip height of 58" that you have already seen pics of.

there are more than just several of the 1 ton registered longhorn bulls in the longhorn industry. these represent the extreme of what can and could be done.

A 2000 pound mature beef bull is not an extreme.

We have 3 senior herdsires. All are 2000 lbs bulls. Like I said before, I have no actual figures, just an estimate based on comparison. But I do think all would tip the scales over a ton, and have had other breeders agree with me.

Magpie said:

but, taking bulls consistantly well past the one ton mark, poses problems that other beef breeds have already found. i do know just enough to avoid that problem which is why i cull my bull calves that weigh over 70 lbs. (culled one, that was 73 lbs bw out of a 1st time heifer, his pedigree was 1/2 show stock and half horn, this gave me a great body but took too much horn off.)

Please provide information showing that taking bulls over 2000 poses problems for other beef breeds? The beef semen company catalogs are full of bulls with mature weights over 2000 lbs. I wouldn't step back from using a bull with that kind of mature weight. In the beef business we're selling pounds of meat, not color, not horn.

We do not have calving problems related to weight. Never had to pull a calf. We usually only lose 1 or 2 calves a year, from 60+/- cows and heifers.

Magpie said:

horn length is the one thing that is measured in this breed, the show stock people are willing to give up a little horn length in order to get the beefy show bodies that win. but, they always working on horn all the time also.

yes, itla is very much working on gathering epd's for the longhorns, but it is a slow process as the old timers don't feel the need for it.. if it ain't broke don't fix it syndrome thingie.

but the newbies to the breed are going for it. and few of these newbies are the 'big boys' with the larger herds, and larger pocketbooks.

So we should expect EPDs on Longhorns soon?

No. Longhorns will not have EPD's soon. Maybe if the associations have a major overhaul sometime soon, but no. The big thing now is horn. A bunch of people have gotten into horn and spending way too much money on cattle with horns (see my post on the Sales board) with ZERO regard to body and correctness. But who knows how long this fad will last, i've seen all the fads come through (spotted, roan, white, red, black, horns before, horns now, etc...) However, there have always been a few people that have made the long-haul, and they are the one that put little emphasis on horns, and more on body, correctness, reproduction; basically Quality Cattle. However those are usually not the one's that make the headlines at the sales and what not.

Magpie said:

but my personal take on this would be to try to use simple common sense, as long as you do not go to extremes, and keep records of what you are doing, use culling, you can avoid this particular hazard.

So you don't have any reliable information on whether the beef type Longhorns are easier calving than traditional Longhorns? You can use common sense, but you can't dictate what kinds of cattle the bull will be used on. All the research that I've read tells us the more a calf weighs, the more likely there will be calving difficulties. And you say you've got at least one calf that weighed more than you liked.

I also do not have any reliable info relating to the calving ease of larger bulls. However, we use larger bulls and have not seen any increase in calving-loss due to larger bulls. Our cows avg. 1100-1200lbs, and range from approx. 900lbs to 1500lbs ( have weighed a 3 year old that weighed 1415lbs)

Magpie said:

now you are saying that my bull is too little to make a difference. you can't have it both ways.

either he is or he isn't too beefy for the longhorn breed...

In my opinion, based on what I've see traditional Longhorn breeders write, he's too big for the Longhorn breed. From my experience in the beef business, he's too small for serious commercial use. Therein lies the dilemma of the Longhorn breeder.

Like I said before 717lbs at a year, should be too small to be considered for a herdsire. I believe that you are considering a bull for a herdsire he should be in the top of the breed. I also strongly believe that there are WAY TOO MANY bulls in the longhorn breed. Too many people wanting to raise there own but do not realize that they do not have the foundation to raise a bull that is Herd Sire quality.



I hope I do not sound arrogant or belittling to anyone. But I am pretty passionate about Longhorns and feel that their overall view by the rest industry is going downhill pretty quickly. I can tell you why I feel this but this may not be the time. However, I do feel that the top end cattle are very high quality and could work well in any herd with any breed. But, these animals will not get the publicity they deserve, b/c they do not have huge horns and wont sell for extravagent numbers.

This is how I feel about this breed and these comments are based on my opinions and experiences in the longhorn breed.

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

4. From the standpoint of "evolution" there was perhaps just one male and one female human...and, just one bull and one cow. Over time & line-breeding and cross-breeding of both two & four legged animals there evolved a wide variety of individuals, all with unique & specialized attributes.

Bill , in the course of time exceeding a years worth , that is the stupidist statement I have ever witnessed.You sir are more ridiculous than previously thought if you believe the standpoint of "evolution " created one male and one female. Just so happened to be at the same time so they could procreate. You are insulting. You suggest that the reason you enjoy this board is the lack of "Relegion" . If that is the case then shut up about your opinion (which is very flawed) . It is a relegion just like any other . Though you may not be intelligent enough to know it is called Humanism. ONLY morons would think evolution is a valid and plausable argument in 2005. It has been scientificaly disproved and the only reason evolution still has any traction is because it gives comfort to those denying Gods existance.

I've deleted my original post. No further comment of mine is warranted.

 

[magpie]

an old fairbanks-morse is the platform scale that we just bought this spring. it has been well taken care of, and none of the running gear is bent in anyway. the previous owners had maintained it on a special heavy weight trailer that they had welded up, special for this platform scale. it still had the metal tabs in place, that are used in transport to secure it. so i know i did not damage it in my transporting of it. we now have it on a concrete base.

i took a 50 bag of cattle feed out to it today, discovered that it was 4 lbs heavy at 0 weight, and 54 lbs for the bag of feed.

fiddled with it enough to get it to register both 0 and 50 lbs now.

so that means he weighed 713 lbs instead of the 717 lbs.

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i never never said i was considering that red/white young bull as a herd sire. i said he was a better choice for crossbreeding in my comparison with the other calf in the same picture.

i took that red/white young bull's dam, and mated her to our black bull, and now have a red/white bull '05 calf from that mating, that i will be able to use as a comparison against the weights and heights that i have already obtained for the '04 1/2 brother. this will let me know how our black bull is doing with the same female.

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our black bull is being used to make sure we dont end up with too much white in our herd, because i have several roan and light colored animals.

we have a two young bulls with horn pedigrees, that are a black roan, and a red roan. their pedigrees are an outcross to my black bull's.


he also is being used to make sure i dont end up breeding miniature longhorns

he and the two other young bulls, bring name recognition in the top and bottomside of their pedigrees so it will be easier to sell their calves.

i have name recognition in most of our female's pedigrees also, so it will be easier to sell the calves.

plus by using the black bull, and keeping to fuller bodies in the herd, i have a much better chance of getting rid of the black steer type (roper style) that i took that pic of, for my comparison pic.

i am not chasing just horn, i am chasing a complete package, which means i do not want roper style cattle in my herd.

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i am sure that your friend that you spoke of when you were talking about that longhorn cow; and his keeping of all her daughters in his herd had more positive things, i.e. savings over losses... to more than justify the occasional loss due to color at the sale barn, or he would never have kept her and all her daughters.

he was enjoying the excellent heterosis they brought to his herd. they saved him more in the calf losses that he was able to avoid, by the use of them in his commerical herd. or he would never have kept them around.

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as for the box, that is the whole point.. there are many different views depending on how you are looking at it.

everybody has their own view, and depending on how they are looking at the box. close up, or further away, to get a better picture. that was the point of that.

even with one person, depending on where their focus is, can get a different view. of the same thing.

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that 700 lb yearling bull will do his job with crossbreeding 1st time heifers, provide excellent heterosis, help them avoid calving problems, have a live healthy calf to sell, and get her ready to breed back in a shorter time frame than she would have, if she had a tramatic calving experience instead.

you cant get calves out of a dead 1st time heifer. a dead calf costs you more in the long run than a colored calf would.

it takes time, feed, and effort, just to get to the point of having a live calf or a dead calf on the ground.

up to that point of the calf being born, alive or dead, it would have cost the same.

the live colored calf, is money head in my book, over a dead calf anyday.


magpie

 

[Frankie]

you cant get calves out of a dead 1st time heifer. a dead calf costs you more in the long run than a colored calf would.

it takes time, feed, and effort, just to get to the point of having a live calf or a dead calf on the ground.

up to that point of the calf being born, alive or dead, it would have cost the same.

the live colored calf, is money head in my book, over a dead calf anyday.

If you're only breeding one or two heifers, you might be right. If you breed 20 heifers to an easy calving beef bull and get 20 calves to sell at weaning weighing 500 lbs and sell them at $1.20 you'll get $12,000

Those same heifers' Longhorn calves won't weigh as much (let's say 400 lbs) and will be discounted at the sale barn (let's say $1.10) and would return $8,800

So in this example, you're leaving $3,200 on the table by using a Longhorn bull. You might still come out ahead if you lost a calf, even a heifer and calf. And that doesn't even address the potential value of heifers born that might be used as replacements. You can play with the figures all you want, but it's not set in stone that using a Longhorn bull on first calf heifers is, necessarily, economical. While calf weight is a big factor in calving difficulty, it's not the only factor. And, again, there are easy calving lines in most beef breeds these days. Just using a "beef" breed bull on heifers doesn't automatically mean calving difficulty.

As for the box, yes, you can view it from all directions and perspectives, but the box is still what it is. Your point of view doesn't change it. And we're still selling quality beef by the pound.

I'm going to apologize to any breeders here that feel I'm insulting their breed. I honestly didn't mean to do that. As I said earlier, magpie pushed some of my buttons, but I've responded and will drop the discussion now. We're getting some much-needed rain here ; I hope everyone else is, too.

 

[TUCO]

...... but I've responded and will drop the discussion now.

PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rustler9]

Gosh,
I've been away for a few days and was surprised at all the discussion that seemingly started because I posted a picture of a cute Longhorn calf. I guess I didn't think it would hurt to post the picture-I see other breeds of calves posted. I know that we as Longhorn breeders are in the minority but I could care less. They are a great breed of cattle, they definitely have a place along with the other breeds. There will be some who will utilize them and some who won't. For anyone who is interested you might read about the seven families who helped preserve the Longhorns when they were almost extinct. Each of these breeders bred for a certain trait. The Phillips and Peeler families placed more emphasis on beef and not on horn thus the reason for these bigger, beefier type Longhorn cattle. They are still purebred Longhorns-all Longhorns began as wild cattle brought over from Spain and intermingled with other breeds that the settlers brought over. I breed Pure bred seed stock cattle that can be used for beef, recreation, show and/or use in commercial breeding programs. I don't sell at he local sale barn because I know they're going to dock me any way they want to because they can. I have buyers for all my stock that don't make it as pure bred breeders. Either they go into a commercial beef herd or someone's freezer.