Selecting bulls for new farm

Help Support CattleToday:

Numbers to run. What is the maximum percent of your total land that will carry a cow? 65 cows @ 95% live birth will yield 60 calves mosa minos.
A ten year replacement schedule would indicate keeping 6-7 heifers per year . Depending on how long you keep the calves you will have any where from
130 to 140 + head on hand and more if you feed to finish. Are any of the barns in good enough condition that they can be used to generate income?
Also live birth does not gaurantee a sold calf. Given you have full time jobs means your time belongs to some one else for a prescribed number of hours
per day week or month. How understanding will your neighbors be when or if your cattle get out and damage results from your absence?
Is there extended family to help with emergencies that are sure to come or will you be responsible every waking hour? There may be land available for
lease in the future but don't expect that until you have established a positive reputation for success on what is under your control.
In short a degree of flexibility ,patience, and good hard work will do wonders.
 
char on black leaves great chance for ratails that you will get paid little for. why not stay with black or red angus, get good ones & growth weight will be fine. maybe not quite as much as char, but will make more in long run
 
I run primarily black cows with Charolais bulls. Out of 90 calving about 70 of the cows are black. I might see one or two rat tails a year. It comes from cows that have Simmental in them. Angus based cows have either tans or silver calves from a white Charolais bull with no red factor in his background. The silvers sell the same as whites here often in the same groups and the tans sell better than blacks but that's a regional thing. The growth weight isn't close to Angus it's +50 or more lbs especially if the cows are mostly Angus. Hybrid vigour.
 
I think a charolais would make a great cross on black and black baldy cows, but if they dont sell very well in your area, I would probably go with a BWF simmental. I would think those baldy calves should sell pretty well justy about anywhere. You won't get all baldies, but than a straight black bull.
I have smokes and Angus calfs. The smokes always sell right with black calfs.
 
I think the OP has the right idea. Crossbreed your commercial cows. The Angus x Simmental are the absolute best crosses. You are taking the highest marbling British breed and crossing with the highest marbling Continental. The Simmental lowers the backfat of the Angus and maintains the carcass quality the feedlots want.
I think you may find Charolais bulls out there that will put more pounds on the ground, but I do not think you will have enough extra pounds to make up for the discount at the sale barn. You will need to keep replacement heifers and you will LOVE your SimAngus mommas. With the hybred vigor, they will be more fertile, better milkers, and healthier.
I am 100% AI, so I obviously promote AI. But, if you are both working, not familiar with cattle, I would advise using a GREAT bull/bulls for a year or two.
My advice is to pick a calving season, calculate when the bulls need to go with the cows, and decide on a 60 day, 45 day or less calving season - AND PULL YOUR BULLS out of the fields. Don't let them run with the cows indefinitely. Plan on really good holding facilities for the bulls. And I say "bulls" because with 65 head, you should have 2 bulls. You can either split your herd, each group with 1 bull - or run both bulls together with the one herd. There are a lot of Simmental in Ky. You want a homozygous polled bull and probably a homozygous black bull.
Now, in all honesty - I am a true-blue Simmental breeder (for almost 50 years), so I am prejudice. But. the breed speaks for itself. They are fertile, heavy milking, heavy muscled, growthy cattle.
Good luck with your venture. Ask all the questions you want. You will have to sift through the answers, but you will get a lot of great advice on here.
Edit: Doug Parke in Paris, Ky can help you find exactly what you are looking for in a Simmental bull.
 
AI is something that may work for some if they can do it and have time to do it on observed heats. Years ago when a local tech was doing the AI work here, I would give the Lutalyse shots and then watch for signs of heat. That set up worked good and we actually got upwards of around 80-90% conception rates. In later years when other techs were doing it with the TAI and CIDRs the results were crap at best around 50% sometimes much worse. To me, unless you are proficient at it yourself or have someone who is available when it needs doing, AI is not a good use of time money and effort. I found that you needed bulls to clean up and if you are going to purchase and maintain bulls then it makes no sense to AI.
 
I think the OP has the right idea. Crossbreed your commercial cows. The Angus x Simmental are the absolute best crosses. You are taking the highest marbling British breed and crossing with the highest marbling Continental. The Simmental lowers the backfat of the Angus and maintains the carcass quality the feedlots want.
I think you may find Charolais bulls out there that will put more pounds on the ground, but I do not think you will have enough extra pounds to make up for the discount at the sale barn. You will need to keep replacement heifers and you will LOVE your SimAngus mommas. With the hybred vigor, they will be more fertile, better milkers, and healthier.
I am 100% AI, so I obviously promote AI. But, if you are both working, not familiar with cattle, I would advise using a GREAT bull/bulls for a year or two.
My advice is to pick a calving season, calculate when the bulls need to go with the cows, and decide on a 60 day, 45 day or less calving season - AND PULL YOUR BULLS out of the fields. Don't let them run with the cows indefinitely. Plan on really good holding facilities for the bulls. And I say "bulls" because with 65 head, you should have 2 bulls. You can either split your herd, each group with 1 bull - or run both bulls together with the one herd. There are a lot of Simmental in Ky. You want a homozygous polled bull and probably a homozygous black bull.
Now, in all honesty - I am a true-blue Simmental breeder (for almost 50 years), so I am prejudice. But. the breed speaks for itself. They are fertile, heavy milking, heavy muscled, growthy cattle.
Good luck with your venture. Ask all the questions you want. You will have to sift through the answers, but you will get a lot of great advice on here.
Edit: Doug Parke in Paris, Ky can help you find exactly what you are looking for in a Simmental bull.
Great comments. Thank you I'm not new to cattle been around them my whole life. Mostly dairy because my dad ran a dairy up until about 5 years ago and I've got a few cows now just decided to venture out on my own. But yes I'm almost set on the simmental bull. My dad has gehlb bulls and I despise them things some of the wildest calves I've been around. I'm looking at putting bulls in with cows in June and leaving them until the end of September. It will be a rotational grazing operation. I should have around 75 to 80 acres of pasture. I'm excited about going out on my own. Might be stressful but it's something I love to do. Thanks again for the comments
 
Gelbvieh LOL - When the American Simmental Association was established, they voted against accepting Gelbvieh as a Simmental strain because of their temperament. I think the breed (like many others) have come a long way on temperament. (but Simmentals are better!!) LOL
Edit - you can find bad animals in ALL breeds.
 
I loved the Gelbviehs we had, didn't have much of any temperament problems with ours. Did have a Gelbvieh bull that hated Chevy trucks. He'd chase them across the field and would beat the heck out of them. The Ford's and Dodge's he never messed with. Still don't know why he would do it. I suppose it was what they sounded like maybe. We did nothing different with them trucks than the others. Probably be raising Gelbviehs still if there had been more breeders around at that time. Ended up going back to Simmental and been raising them since.
 
Not sure about the kind of cattle or your situation but don't count on cows paying for anything. Don't mean to bust your bubble. I have very little overhead & am doing good to break even. With that said, I'd look for a registered bull that you can see the epd's on with low birthweight/calving ease If you're getting black cows. If not breeding to first time heifers you'd be fine with a moderate bw. I'd go with what sells in your area. In my area you can't go wrong with black or black baldies. If I had it to do over I might go with simmental. Kinda the best of both worlds but not popular in my area so would have to travel to find them.
Bad advice. Get a terminal bull, and sell every calf out of him. Calves will weigh 100 pounds more at weaning. I have a buddy not to far from you that can hook you up.
 
Something I have never done is A.I. Since Cress is working out and likely not having time to do the prep work or the actual breeding ( I am assuming here) how much would it cost for a crew and tech and semen?
Agcreekrch, I dunno about those costs. Any AI-ing of cattle I have been around, it was the owners and/or the help doing it. I dunno if there are techs you can pay or not.. I assume there may be in some places. Here in GA, as far as horses go, only a vet can charge to do AI work with the horses. You can do your own, but you can't advertise AI service and/or charge people to AI horses unless you are a vet. I do know that that the Extension Service at the Ag colleges here, all offer AI cattle classes that people can take, and a lot of cattlemen have taken them , or sent an employee or kid or something to take the course. Semen cost,. depends on the bull. I would like to know, too, if there are AI techs, and how much they charge.
 
Agcreekrch, I dunno about those costs. Any AI-ing of cattle I have been around, it was the owners and/or the help doing it. I dunno if there are techs you can pay or not.. I assume there may be in some places. Here in GA, as far as horses go, only a vet can charge to do AI work with the horses. You can do your own, but you can't advertise AI service and/or charge people to AI horses unless you are a vet. I do know that that the Extension Service at the Ag colleges here, all offer AI cattle classes that people can take, and a lot of cattlemen have taken them , or sent an employee or kid or something to take the course. Semen cost,. depends on the bull. I would like to know, too, if there are AI techs, and how much they charge.

I do know that I have better things to spend my time on than bringing any amount of pairs in three times over. splitting calves away, running through the chute, paying for semen and all the time involve to keep from owning bulls. Time far better spent in making sure your fences and facilities will actually hold bulls and keep them where you put them. Again, my opinionated opinion only!
 
I remember when Dad AI'd, we'd spend all day on horseback. Rain or shine. Mostly rain the way I remember it lol. Bring them in as we found them in heat. In those days if you wanted to be breed to a good simmie bull that was your options. Now we can actually buy a bull that we like that does all the work.
 
If you are going to keep heifers and breed them would recommend an angus bull with good growth on black or black baldie cows. With breeding char, you will have to keep buying new bred cows and finding good ones is way more difficult than growing them yourself. If you are starting with cows, I would stay away from calving ease bulls as you will likely never make up the difference between a 65lb and an 85lb calf. I would agree with previous comments that paying a little more for a good bull, and speaking from experience of buying cows through the ring would either buy them on a complete dispersal or private treaty. I bought some good looking bred heifers through the sale ring when I increased my herd and my dad's home raised cattle of the same age raised 80lb heavier calves and bred back better.
 
What are your plans for 60-65 cows, calves and bulls on 80 acres of pasture in a dry year?
 
What are your plans for 60-65 cows, calves and bulls on 80 acres of pasture in a dry year?
I guess I'll be screwed lol. We don't get dry years very often but when it's dry it is dry that's for sure. With rotating pastures and turning out on hay fields after regrown after 2nd cutting and leasing 60 more acres of hay off the neighbor just to keep it clean. I think I'll be just fine on pasture and hay both. But let's hope and pray it don't turn off dry.
 
Buy the best bull you can afford. It pays more to spend extra on a bull than any cows. With Simmentals you can have about any color you want, solid red, red white face, BWF, or all black. We like the Angus/Simmental cross. Black feeders with a little blaze of white on the face sell as well as solid black around here.
How would a red fleckvieh simmental cross with black cows and black and white face cows. Would you get to much white or would it be kinda like putting a Hereford bull in with black and bwf cows. I've found some sharp flecks that looks like would put some pounds on the ground.
 

Latest posts

Top