Shorthorn AI sire help

[woodswalker]

Hello,
I'm looking to breed my two registered shorthorn heifers in June for spring 2017 calves...

They are both roans, and I would like to have roan calves from them. I would like functional, correct, long lived cattle, and have no interest in show cattle. If I could get sexed semen, that would be great as well, so I could get heifer calves to keep...

I am relatively new to cattle, and have no experience with AI.

I have a local (central Maryland) Select Sires rep. I assume Select Sires agents only use Select Sires products... Or is my assumption incorrect? They have JSF Capiche. Capiche looks like show stock to my untrained eye...Anybody have any experience with Capiche on heifers? What do his daughters turn out like?

It looks like Cattle Visions has Saskvalley Yesterday... This bull would probably give me a decent shot at calving ease, throw roan calves on my roan heifers, and from what I have read, start my genetics in a good maternal direction...

Anybody have thoughts, knowing what direction I want to go? Go with Capiche, or beat the bushes for somebody to use Yesterday?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[redcowsrule33]

From what I understand of the roaning gene, you have a 50:50 chance of roan vs. solid regardless of whether you use a white, roan, or red bull. All you are altering is what color the solids will be. Roan on roan will be 25% red/25% white/50% roan.

As for bloodlines there are others here that know far more than I.

 

[Son of Butch]

Sounds like your biggest obstacle will be getting the semen into your heifers.
I would focus on who will be doing the insemination and then choose the sire.
Your assumption may be wrong, talk with your local Select Sire A.I. tech to see how he can help you out.
Maybe you can have semen shipped to him or maybe he will have some other suggestions.

 

[woodswalker]

Red cow, Thanks for that explanation! I took genetics, but that was a long time ago! I guess I would prefer roans, because I like looking at them, but I would rather have high quality, real world functional cattle than any certain color phase...

Butch's son, you are quite right! Getting an AI tech out to the farm for my two heifers will be the tough part! I am going to call the local SS rep tomorrow and pick his brain a little... That should shed a lot of light as to how and what will wind up happening...

I appreciate both of your insight!

 

[RoppFamilyFarm]

Cattle Visions is the best place to get Shorthorn Semen. SS & Genex both have a SH bull or two, but Cattle Visions has a huge selection and great service! Just like you I Love the Roan. The fun thing about SH is that you never know what you are going to get! If you want to make some great Maternal, Easy Keeping, Mamma Cows, I highly recommend Saskvalley or AltaCedar Bloodlines. Alot of my foundation herd was build upon Saskvalley Bonanza & Stampede. Another good bull that I have just started using is Hot Commodity. I have 2 heifers and 2 steers out of him this year and am impressed soo far. I know that there are a few others on here that might have some good suggestions as well, Nesikep & Shorty Breeder... Any other recommendations?

Saskvalley Yesterday & Hot Commodity both would be a Heifer Safe bull in my opinion.

If you want any pics or my herd or any questions PM me. Would be happy to give you my input!

 

[woodswalker]

Ropp,

Sure! I'd love to see pictures of your cattle! Feel free to post them in this post and tell me about the genetics of them! That way I can see exactly what you are talking about and what different blood lines look like.

If I can figure out how to post pics, I'll try to put up some pics of my two heifers, so people know what I am starting with.

I would love to have some Bonanza blood in my herd... I love the way that bull looks, and I bet Yesterday will build good cows as well. I'm hoping to make a few calls today to see what my options for AI techs are.

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Lucky_P]

Agree, Cattle Visions has the broadest selection of Shorthorn sires - and while most they carry are 'show' oriented, they do have some good 'commercial-oriented' Shorthorn sires on deck.
Select Sires also has JSF Guage, who, in my mind, is a better pick for heifers - job #1 is getting a live calf on the ground - and Guage has a much higher CED - as well as higher WW and MCE epds than Capiche.
Guage is red... there's a 50% chance of roan, 50% of red calves, out of your roan heifers, but as discussed earlier, those are the same odds if you used a roan bull - but there'd be a 25% likelihood of either red or white calves in the mix

 

[woodswalker]

Lucky,

Thanks a lot for your thoughts... I always look forward to your posts and certainly value your input! JSF gauge does look good! Might be a better option than Capiche if I do indeed have to wind up going with a SS product... Especially if there's no difference in odds for a roan calf...

Anybody have any thoughts on going with a white bull? Aren't they homozygous for roaning? Would that give me better odds of roan calves?

Any thoughts on this bull? White Jazz?

http://executivesires.blogspot.com/2012 ... 3.html?m=1

Thank you all for your continued advice and discussion about this!

 

[redcowsrule33]

Anybody have any thoughts on going with a white bull? Aren't they homozygous for roaning? Would that give me better odds of roan calves?

Nope. 50% roan, 50% solid.

 

[woodswalker]

Thanks Red Cow!

 

[tamarack]

I have calves off a lot of different sires Yesterday calves are good but in my experience carefull what heifers you breed him to.i will try to get pics of them and post tomorrow if have time. Also look to Horseshoe creek shorthorn website lots of good ones there.

 

[tamarack]

Here are some calves off various bulls I have used. first is SV Yesterday off a purebred red sh heifer
This heifer is from Horseshoe Creek, Shady lane Rockstar bull


This bull is from HC bull Irish Mist Return a white bull

Other bulls I have used is Coalpit Creek Leader from y lazy y in Montana but is a red bull, good calves.

 

[tamarack]

White shorthorn bull I used
These are the color I got so far off Red shorthorn cows


I have a few roan color cows to calve will show what I get when they calve.

 

[frieghttrain]

Great calves!!

 

[woodswalker]

tamarack,

Thanks so much for sharing pictures of your cattle! You have some great cattle!

Does that heifer out of the red cow and Saskvalley Yesterday have a little bit of roaning to her, or is she solid red? It's hard to tell from the picture, there might be a little bit of frosting there...

As much as I like Yesterday, your comment on being careful with what heifers to breed him true is in line with my thinking. I'm already worried about my heifers being small, so after much discussion with Lucky_P, I think I am going to breed them to a really highly rated Calving ease Angus from Select Sires... Heisman.

I think that will give me the best chance of a live healthy calf, that should make a decent replacement if I choose to keep a heifer. If I could get a blue roan heifer calf, I'll be estatic!

My assumption was correct, that my Select Sires Rep will only use semen from their bulls unless I get there and keep it in my tank, which doesn't exist. I'll test the waters with the AI thing this go-round, and maybe one day I'll get more creative with where I get my semen from. Select Sires has a pretty limited shorthorn selection.

Those roan calves from the Horseshoe Creek bulls sure are pretty... I really like HC Rockstar...

Thanks a lot for posting those pics, I love seeing those pretty roans!

 

[frieghttrain]

Why Heisman if you want shorthorn use Gauge. Joe

 

[Lucky_P]

From discussions with woodswalker... these heifers are on the small side...really quite small. And... he likes blue roans almost as much as a red roan...
First order of business is to get a live calf on the ground without killing the heifer - something she can mother and figure out what she needs to do to be a good cow. A 'coupon', if you will, for the chance to stay around to breed and calve out again.
Gauge is a pretty good calving ease bull, for his breed; but if you compare with the across-breed epds tables (and, yes, I know they're not perfect, but they're the best we've got to work with)... there's a significant difference in BW - and probably calving ease - between Gauge and an Angus or Red Angus bull with CED of 14 or higher.

Personally, I don't look for a first-timer to do anything but finish up with a live, weaned calf... if it's decent, so much the better, but I rarely evaluate a first-calf heifer based on what her first calf looks like... they just don't usually stack up that well against those from mature cows.

While I didn't specifically recommend Heisman - of the three high CED Angus bulls at SS that woodswalker was looking at, there were a number of factors that made him my pick of that bunch.

 

[tamarack]

To bad cant get Irish Mist Return or SL Rockstar from HC they are good heifer bulls and should give roans these pic are when the Mist return and Rock star were calves


All my Yesterday calves came out all red, nice calves just had to give a hand at birth.

 

[woodswalker]

Freight,

Yeah, my first priority is to get a live calf. With Heisman, I'm going with what I hope is a bull with the smallest birth weight I can get that still should pass on some maternal potential to a heifer calf. My heifers were out of first calf heifers themselves, and were weaned pretty darn small. I think it kind of stunted them, and I don't think they will ever be very big. If I can't get a live calf from one of the best calving ease bulls from the best calving ease breed, I might as well take up golf!

I do love roan shorthorns, and the calves like Tamarack posted would be a dream come true! A pretty blue roan heifer calf would be just as good or better too!

Lucky,

Thanks for all of your help and advice!

Tamarack,

Those are beautiful calves! I think I prefer the look of the darker roan, but they are both beautiful! Maybe next year, I'll explore other options for AI, and I'll definitely keep the HC sires in mind. Post any and all pictures you would like, I'll never get tired of looking at them! You have some awesome cattle!

 

[Lucky_P]

I know several Shorthorn sires that ww could probably use, and likely without a problem - but Gauge isn't one of them, and they're not at Select Sires.

I'm a red cow man, and like Shorthorns... but would likely also be breeding some traditional-colored/marked Simmentals and Pinzgauer if the market wouldn't kill me for it. But in the end, I'm still pandering(mostly) to the demand for black hide - and if I needed a high CED Angus bull to successfully calve out some heifers the first go-round, it wouldn't kill me to do it (though I might try to get my mitts on some Above & Beyond (Red Angus) semen instead... but if I were limited to what the Select rep had in his tank... black wouldn't be the end of the world.