Senepol bulls over charolais and charbray heifers?

[jilleroo]

Has anybody done this who can give me some information? We're been joining our heifer portion to angus bulls for many years but the lack of heat tolerance in the newborn calves is a major problem.....The straight charolais and charbray calves are fine in the heat, as long as you don't hunt them around, but the half angus ones are hopeless.

We've bought three young senepol bulls, USA embryo imports, to join to one batch of heifers and are hoping they will solve our problem. However, it's hard to get information from anybody who has actually done the cross and how it went regarding calf size at birth etc. Can someone give me some information here?

 

[Australian Cattleman]

I have a friend that uses Senepol over South Devon. He can't keep up with demand for the heifers. He uses them over his SD heifers. I haven't heard that he has had any problems with them calving.They have cleaned up their coats using the Senepol. I would prefer the Brahman as they are heavier boned and have more scale than the Senepol. But then I don't know a lot of info about the Senepol.

 

[jilleroo]

Thanks, Australian Cattleman. AA Company is buying lots of senepol bulls now and also senepol/charolais cross for their northern properties. Their ability to handle the heat and do well on poor grass is their attraction. We hope they'll be as good calving-wise over our heifers as the angus but I don't have much information to compare them. I read on the breed website their average calving weight is 35kgs which isn't really that small, is it? If we put pure brahmans over our heifers, the calves would be monsters! The biggest calf we've ever pulled (out of a neighbour's simbrah heifer) was by a grey brahman. The brahman female limits the size of the calf, but put a brahman bull over a european breed, and you may get a very large calf indeed.

 

[Australian Cattleman]

I've heard it mentioned so many times about Brahman calving problems when used over breeds other than Brahmans. I have not had a problem with South Devon heifers,Hereford heifers,Angus heifers,Black Baldy heifers,Charolais heifers,Gelbvieh heifers and dairy breeds. Perhaps because I have mostly good old Australian bloodlines and not too much Hudgins types. I always use Brahman or South Brahvon over my heifers. I save the Angus for the cows because of their unpredictabilty these days. We could have used an Angus in the olden days instead of either a Brahman or South Brahvon.We only use Angus about every 4 years. I quite like the Senepol as I do the Bonsmara. Belmonts cross very well over South Devon. I have a couple of cows of this cross and they breed and milk very well.
Colin

 

[jilleroo]

That's interesting to hear that you've put brahman over different breeds of heifers successfully. Getting back to the senepol, we're hoping it will value add our weaners too as there does seem to be a demand. There's an ad running of the Qld Country Life at present wanting senepol/brahman cross weaners and the charolais cross seems popular also. There's no South Devons up this way that I know of, there may be some around Tambo/Charleville I think. I guess we'll just have to wait and see and cross our fingers with the calving. Depends a lot on whether or not we get a season! I know I worry a lot more than most people out here - on mot places the heifers live or they don't live - but I think it's my dairy cattle background as a child - I grew up watching calving heifers and it's a hard habit to break! Just hate to go out and see something dead I could have easily saved. Also, those white cattle blow up so big you could almost see them from outer space!