I'm not really concerned with having a really good calving ease where I'll be buying cows. I don't want a pallet head calf but I'm not going to base my bull section on calving ease. I'm after growth and nothing much more than that. I will not be retaining heifers for a few years. If I do it won't be many. But I know what your saying as far as black being better. Just thought maybe it would have a baldie calf kinda like a Hereford angus cross.
Cress, I think you need to step back and look at things a little more Holistically. Lee is absolutely right about profit and lbs per acre vs lbs per animal. You're not just in the cattle business. You're in the grass/rangeland management business, and there's a lot more to consider than how many lbs each calf weights at weaning and their price at sale time. You need to subdivide your pasture, and come up with a solid plan for rotational grazing to give each paddock sufficient rest and grazing time. Given your work schedule you won't be able to do UHDG, but you could easily do MIG. Once you have the cattle trained and used to moving, it will be fast and easy to move them. One of my friends moves 2000 head of yearlings daily from april-october and it takes him about 30 min of work a day, if that. You'll be able to increase your stocking rate, or save forage for winter grazing / dry years. On that small of acreage you should be able to easily plan watering for each paddock. The more paddocks and rotating, the better the result....keep in mind it's not a set time frame for grazing each paddock. You'll have to observe the forage and grazing levels of each, and the regrowth. No 2 areas in your pasture are going to grow identically. Take notes now and it will make your life easier later.
I agree chasing CE too much is pointless. But not chasing it enough is a recipe for disaster. All it takes is one or two lost calves and that extra money you've made for a little extra weight on the rest has gone into the negative. I haven't had to pull a calf since I was a kid. I couldn't even tell you where my puller is. My calves this year averaged 550lbs at 190 days in a drought year, and I sleep all night with no worries during calving season and again haven't lost a calf since I was a kid.
Keep in mind chasing WW too much is just as destructive to your bottom line. You need to balance WW and Feed Efficiency. If you have a lot of WW but your animals take 20% more feed to achieve the same ADG, you're profit margins shrink significantly.
If you aren't keeping replacements, then go with a terminal bull with the characteristics you want. If you are keeping replacements, the need for balancing feed efficiency goes up significantly. If 2 cows produce similar WWs, but one requires 20% more to feed and maintain....well you see where I'm going with that. One of my smallest and oldest cows (she's 17 now) is the first one to breed back, first one to calve, and she weans one of the bigger calves in the group. She could get fat on 3 awns. The less the cow has to do to maintain their own condition, the more they have to give for calving, the easier they recover, breed back, and milk. A cow with a great milk EPD but terrible efficiency that can't meet her nutritional needs is going to produce less milk than a cow with a lower milk EPD but greater efficiency that can maintain her needs.
Learn and understand genetics. Half of the people (probably more than half) that raise cattle have no idea the genetics behind Polled, scurs, and African horn genetics, and there's a ton of bad information on here that's blatantly wrong from people who don't understand the genetics.
Don't believe everything you hear or are told. Read, read, read, and learn. Question everything, be willing to try new things outside your comfort zone. Profitability has just as much to do with you and your management and marketing decisions as it does with the cows. I do things a lot different than my dad and granddad did....but my cost per cow is lower and my profit margin is higher. A little bit of extra effort can lead to a lot of extra profit. Example: I had a neighbor's waygu bull break into my pasture and breed a few of my cows (I will never own wagyu, I'd rather own bison for the trouble that thing was). They came out looking very wagyu and would have gotten a huge hit at the salebarn. My dad's advice was "just taken them and sell them, take the hit, and move on to next year." Instead I did a little research, marketed them, sold them private treaty at an average of 590 lbs for a premium that year ($194 cwt). Well worth the couple hours I spent online and talking to people. The buyer was happy and has bought more of my Angus and hereford X calves in the following years for a premium.
You are set up to make a lot more per acre than I am here. It took 80 acres per pair this year, and I'm still feeding grass. Most years it's 25-40 acres a pair here. I've strongly considered moving to your area where I can run exponentially more cattle on less ground and not have to worry about the years where 100 acres won't feed a cow, and bomb cyclone blizzards that reek havoc.
I still work full time on base in addition to the cattle and 4 young kids (plus doing an M. Div online). When my cows are at home, I check them in the evenings or mornings. When the cows are at any of my lease grounds I'll stop by and check them on my way home from base. I calve in Late April/May in synch with nature here. I stop by after work by myself and tag, give shots, and band new calves as they come. I can do about 1 calf every 4-5 minutes and saves me time later. For an hour a day during calving season I save a lot of time later on and have really healthy calves. I haul the portable corrals and squeeze chute out to the lease ground on a friday at branding and do them all myself and give shots over the weekend.
Don't undervalue good stockmanship. You can process a lot of cows and calves per day by yourself with the right setup and good stockmanship.
The number one trait I select for is disposition. I don't care what their calving ease or WW is. I don't care how awesome the bull looks. If they aren't at the top for disposition they have no place in my herd. I've worked enough rank cattle, mine won't be among them. Loading cows and bulls up is effortless with good disposition and good stockmanship.
Cows have to be cows. I don't care what their other traits are. They need to calve without any assistance, gain back condition quickly, wean a good calf, rebreed, maintain their condition, and have good disposition. All on grass and mineral with as little supplementation as possible (obviously hay here on drought years in the winter is a necessity). If they fail to meet any of those parameters...they get culled without hesitation.
I love my cows more than I like people..and I enjoy doing it and learning and learning more....but they have to be profitable...and they can be profitable.
Just my 2 cents for what it's worth
