RB Tour of Duty 177

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cow pollinater- Even without high reliability his epd's are so far out that even if he's not what he's suposed to be he'll still be in the top ten percent of the breed on growth.
That being said, he's a one hit wonder and I personally wouldn't touch him.

CP could you please elaborate on what that means? I thought "one hit wonder" means he produced one good bull and the rest were average. Are you referring to the breeder, the bull, or something else?

Found this video on youtube. It would be easier to evaluate his movement if he were walking on solid ground instead of loose dirt that sinks when he steps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjAjVJXZWSc
[youtube]UjAjVJXZWSc[/youtube]
 
Cow Pollinator,

Can you please explain to me why you think he is a one hit wonder? I can understand the argument about his accuracies being low because he has either not had many calves bred to him or there have been few people who have tuned in data on calves that were sired by him but I don't understand how you could say he is a one hit wonder? I did a search on all bulls born between 2010-2012 with a YW EPD of 100+ and to be honest very few of them had accuracies much better than Tour of Duty. To me this tells me that his accuracy numbers are about average but his growth EPDs are way above average. If his CE and BW accuracies stay anywhere close to where they are now then he is a no brainer to use in my humble opinion. Unless a person disputes the validity of the Angus EPDS or the average accuracy of bulls his same age I find it hard to believe how anyone could disagree that he may be one of the very best growth bulls in the business with a good CE and BW to go along with it.

KW
 
His accuracies are about right for his age. I am always surprised with how low the accuracy stays on these expensive bulls in their first few years. Often they are used, but the owners don't turn in data until the offspring are yearlings. I have never understood that. Sometimes I am suspicious that they study it first and then turn in the numbers that are most advantageous to EPD's. If they are not in the maternal plus program the calving ease and birth weight data will not be reflected until the weaning weight data is turned in and the fees paid. So CED numbers for calves born this spring are probably not in there yet.

If you like his looks and his pedigree, you should use him. I would bet his WW will stay high, but his CED will drop to something more realistic. I don't AI heifers to young unproven bulls, but if they don't settle AI they end up bred to my own bulls anyway, and none of them have high accuracy. All of my current bulls are growth bulls, and calving ease is not their strong point. I have not had any problems lately with calving difficulties, so a bull like Tour of duty would probably be no worse than what is breeding heifers in my own pasture. As long as he can stay above 0 CED, most heifers should calve to him fine.
 
tnwalkingred":wghszkfm said:
Cow Pollinator,

Can you please explain to me why you think he is a one hit wonder?
KW
Click to expand...

What I mean is that growth is the main attraction. That's the one thing that he does really well. He's not a good carcass bull, he's not going to give you efficient daughters, but they will GROW.
I can see using him as a terminal sire but using him to "improve" a cow herd would throw things out of balance real quick.
 
Cow Pollinator,

Thank you for the explanation. It's nice to disagree with people on this site and for the conversation to stay pleasant. I'm only in my second year raising registered cattle so I have much to learn and I really appreciate the advice and opinions given. Can you explain why you say he is not a good carcass bull and will not raise efficient replacements? I always thought that in order to sale seed stock that people wanted, you had to breed up the weaknesses in your own cattle to improve their numbers. Since I know my cattle are weak in growth that breeding them to a bull like Tour of Duty would most certainly improve the numbers on their progeny so that the next cross could be used to increase maternal traits. Now I most certainly don't want to try that if it will negatively affect my herd.

Let me add this one point. When people in my area try to sell a registered bull to a commercial breeder there are really only a few things that commercial breeder cares about as most have no idea what an EPD is. If they do they normally only look at WW and YW. Some will look at $B but most only care about growth. They most certainly must be an appealing phenotype as well. My thought process was a bull calf sired by Tour of Duty would have much better numbers out of my cows than one of the more popular sires. Thoughts????

KW
 
tnwalkingred":1arcbb91 said:
Cow Pollinator,

Can you explain why you say he is not a good carcass bull and will not raise efficient replacements? I always thought that in order to sale seed stock that people wanted, you had to breed up the weaknesses in your own cattle to improve their numbers. Since I know my cattle are weak in growth that breeding them to a bull like Tour of Duty would most certainly improve the numbers on their progeny so that the next cross could be used to increase maternal traits. Now I most certainly don't want to try that if it will negatively affect my herd.

Let me add this one point. When people in my area try to sell a registered bull to a commercial breeder there are really only a few things that commercial breeder cares about as most have no idea what an EPD is. If they do they normally only look at WW and YW. Some will look at $B but most only care about growth. They most certainly must be an appealing phenotype as well. My thought process was a bull calf sired by Tour of Duty would have much better numbers out of my cows than one of the more popular sires. Thoughts????

KW
Click to expand...
Carcass wise he's not bad and he will help yield grade some but he's not a good marbling bull and quality grade is the main factor driving the angus popularity. As far as cow inefficiency, he's -40 some odd on $EN. If you were to sell a couple of sons to someone who doesn't believe in supplementing during hard times and they keep daughters they're going to have thin open cows and not much else.
On genetic improvement, you have the right idea but you need to look to complete genetics that do EVERYTHING right. Right now you're chasing growth. If you chase it fast enough in a generation or two you'll figure out that somethings wrong and turn back around to chase fertility. :D There are plenty of bulls that can help you on growth without creating any new problems.
As far as your customers... regardless of what they say they want your job should still be to sell them complete cattle. They might ONLY look at WW and YW but if you sell them a bunch of hard doing bulls and they run into problems I can just about promise you that they won't be customers anymore. I've sold literally hundreds of thousands of units of semen and I can tell you first hand that if you give a customer what they say they want and only what they say they want without taking care of their long term NEEDS, you're not going to be in business very long. ;-)
 
I agree with C P , as terminal in a commercial herd may be ideal. I dont think even around here they want 2700 lb bulls. I belive his numbers will narrow over time. Prime example 5 yrs ago Harb Pendelton gonna be the greatest thing ever BW -3.7 WW 94 YW 143 today BW .1 WW 57 YW 103 big difference in about 5 yrs.

If i was gonna make moderate out of small frame cattle i would use some proven high performance bulls, but not to the extreme that tour of duty is.
 
RB Tour of Duty acc are no better than my own bull
I was lucky sold Tour of Duty semen online today for 13.00 per unit
 
Tour of Duty is doing a good job.




Z_14_TOD.jpg
 
Katpau, I wondered often about the same thing... whether breeders cherry pick which calves they report data on to make things look good. Once the accuracies get higher, you can be more confident that there has been less 'cherry picking'.
 
http://www.rileybrosangus.com/sales.html

Riley Bros. sold 6 R B Tour of Duty 177 sons in their Third Annual Riley Bros Angus Bull Sale. Birth weights for these bulls were 71, 71, 71, 74, 75, and 85 pounds. Wean weights were 797, 808, 810, 832, 877, and 903 pounds.

In the sale catalog they describe R B Tour of Duty 177, "bar none the most docile bull we have ever raised" and he "has compiled some incredible data in his first calf crop. Ratioing 98 for BW, 106 for WW and 107 for YW on his first 106 calves in eight herds. The most amazing part of this data is only 13 of these calves were raised here at Riley Bros., which makes his data very accurate."

His EPDs put him in the top 3% for CED, 1% for WW, 1% for YW, 1% for RADG, 1% for Docility, 1% for Milk, 5% for Ribeye, and his phenotype is difficult to find fault with.

Glenn Davis is the herd manager at Riley Bros. Angus, he would probably know more about R B Tour of Duty 177 than anyone else. His phone number is listed on their website.
 
I hope to be able to tell you in the spring as I used him on my Black Angus cows and Red Angus cows if I hit the 70 percent that is possible I will have a few to look at. He is in the top 3 percent of the Angus breed.
 
I will have to retract a previous negative statement. Many have told me TD is the real deal.
As with most bulls with good epds they almost always drop when the general public uses them.

More importantly many are saying use this bull for show cattle..
Actually some people need a outcross to what they have been using, so TD fits in that way.
Reports his dam is super.
TD was raised in a environment that is much different that where many if us a posting from.
 
Brand":31sptmc4 said:
I will have to retract a previous negative statement. Many have told me TD is the real deal.
As with most bulls with good epds they almost always drop when the general public uses them.

More importantly many are saying use this bull for show cattle..
Actually some people need a outcross to what they have been using, so TD fits in that way.
Reports his dam is super.
TD was raised in a environment that is much different that where many if us a posting from.
Click to expand...
Do you have any more info? Is a cow maker? Or just seen a lot of his sons?

Curious as to your comment and why you say, "More importantly many are saying ... for show cattle" Who is many??
 
I bred 600 commercial cows to him this year. Ultrasound 30 days later and we bred 384. That's 64%. Haven't used a bull yet on a big number of cows that does just a whole lot better.
 
Five months ago, there was a run on Tour of Duty semen. I was impressed with his EPD's and got in touch my usual source. No luck. My source was out--at the price of $60 a straw! Same with another source. I decided to use VAR Ranger, instead. Out of curiosity, I recently checked out the current availability of Tour of Duty. The price had dropped to $30 a straw. It will be interesting to follow the progress of this sire. His videos on line are super impressive. If his offspring follow in his footsteps, I'll get my order in early for next season.
 

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