Simmental Cattle

Help Support CattleToday:

MountainFarmChar

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
Messages
172
Reaction score
0
Location
EastTN
I have always liked the looks of some of the Simmental cattle, especially when they were red/yellow and white but most were so huge I was always afraid of the problems that might create. Now most are black and that's just not Simmental to me. Before purchasing the Beefmaster bull I have now I considered a Simmental bull to cross on some Charolais cows. I'm persuaded I made the right choice with the Beefmaster but time will tell, it always does. However, some of those Simmental cattle sure are pretty.

Any comments available on the red/yellow Simmental cattle :?:
 
Black Simmental = Great market scheme by angus (CAB)
With that said i have seen the black simmi's improve greatly over the past 10 years.
there are also some awful fine red ones out there as well.
The old red and white ones were a little on the large size for most operations with traditional English bred cows (800-900 lb angus). The older lemon and white cows were pretty hard to beat as mama's they would do a heck of a job weaning a calf especially if you could keep the groceries to them.
With that said the modern simmental has come a long way in moderating their size both mature and birth.
A lot of emphasis has been placed on calving ease in the simmental breed (perhaps a little too much) A recent study in Montana (i think) recently looked at breeding Angus heifers to the top 10%BW angus bulls and top 10% calving ease epd simmental bulls. The simmental averaged around 4lbs more on the birth weights than did the angus. Not that great of difference in my opinion
 
MFC I bought 14 head simmental cows this last summer only 1 black and rest red/yelow white. I have come to love the looks of these cattle. I've always have favored herfords but these simmentals work just as good. They were bred to an Angus bull so I have 13 simxa calves that are doing great. As for size thier no bigger than some of my herfords no problem calving and plenty of milk.
 
I bred a bunch of hereford heifers to a simmy bull. They will calve in march. I foresee no problems at all. Looking forward to the calves.
 
We raised Simmentals ( not the black or solid red kind ) in New Zealand for 14 years and found them great all round cattle to raise.
As a breed we didn't show for many years and concentrated on peformance and so eliminated a lot of the calving issues but sadly the showring took over for a lot of people and did a lot of damage.
My first year in the US we went to our local fair- after going through the the simmentals in the cattle pens my wife asked me if they made me miss the Simmys from home. I had to say I hadn't seen one that looked like a Simmy so it wasn't a problem.

Its a shame really as they are a breed with a tremendous amount to offer especially when it comes to producing fast growing young beef on grass.
cheers
Goddy
 
We have been raising Simmental for about 35 years. Had the yellow/red spotted mommas. Loved them then and love the new modern Simmental now.
As noted, the Simmental breed has come a long way. I don't care if they are red/black - or polka dotted. They are good. The breed was "perceived" to be a calving problem breed, but that's because back in the early 70's people bred these monster fullblood bulls to their "culls" so that they could try the new breed. YUP - killed a lot of cows that way.
Because of the "perceived" problem, the breeders have used EPD's to improve calving ease.
According the the MARC research, the Simmental bulls calve easier than the Herefords and equal (within 2%) to Angus bulls. With the use of EPD's, there is no excuse for people having calving difficulties. Any Simmental bull with a +10 CE EPD is recommended on Angus heifers (or any other breeds).
The Nebraska Univ is using my PB Simmental bull - used 65 units & bred commercial Angus heifers.
I have to admit, I still love looking at the spotted Simmies, but I go for quality & what sells, so solid blacks & solid reds with or without blaze faces is what we shoot for.
Good reds are worth as much (if not more) than blacks right now.
 
Yep MFC,

Those traditional colored and marked Simmy's are probably my favorites as far as appearance goes. We fed quite a few cattle in the 70's and early 80's. Some of the best cattle in the feedlot were those SimmyXBritish cross cattle. Grew well, excellent disposition, and we didn't get docked in those days for having spotted cattle or non-black hides.

I've played around with the idea of breeding a few of our cows artificially to some of those popular Simmy bulls from the 70's (Signal, Toni, Galant). I think it would be interesting to see just how they compare in birth weights, calving ease, growth, etc. relative to today's more modern cattle. I know what the EPD's say, but EPDs don't always represent what we see in the real world.
 
i liked the older simm.but they sure did take alot more groceries.and always seemed more roach backed and bad feet. i like the modern red version better. but i have some black simbrah
 
The old simmies had much heavier BW than they have now - but they were lots bigger COWS and could easily handle the bigger calves.
The real old Simmies (70's type) had good feet & legs. It was when we went chasing the showring wanting TALL cattle, they got gutless & bad legged. Fortunately for us, we wanted to win in the show ring, but volume & structure were more important to us as a breeder.
BUT, the old heavy BW calves were much slower getting going than the new modern type calves. I used to make excuses for them - must be low on SE, need another shot, was too cold, blah,blah. Now, I realize the truth is they were SLOWER, didn't have the energy of these newer calves.
 
Jeanne - Simme Valley":2rzrun4v said:
The old simmies had much heavier BW than they have now - but they were lots bigger COWS and could easily handle the bigger calves.
The real old Simmies (70's type) had good feet & legs. It was when we went chasing the showring wanting TALL cattle, they got gutless & bad legged. Fortunately for us, we wanted to win in the show ring, but volume & structure were more important to us as a breeder.
BUT, the old heavy BW calves were much slower getting going than the new modern type calves. I used to make excuses for them - must be low on SE, need another shot, was too cold, blah,blah. Now, I realize the truth is they were SLOWER, didn't have the energy of these newer calves.

It has been my experience that bigger calves of any breed are always slower to get up and in certain conditions that can be a problem but as long as the weather is mild and the mother is attentive everything should be ok. Those little angus calves seem to jump up right away but I just don't like those small tiny calves. I want a good size calf at weaning.
 
MountainFarmChar":2xue0w8r said:
Jeanne - Simme Valley":2xue0w8r said:
The old simmies had much heavier BW than they have now - but they were lots bigger COWS and could easily handle the bigger calves.
The real old Simmies (70's type) had good feet & legs. It was when we went chasing the showring wanting TALL cattle, they got gutless & bad legged. Fortunately for us, we wanted to win in the show ring, but volume & structure were more important to us as a breeder.
BUT, the old heavy BW calves were much slower getting going than the new modern type calves. I used to make excuses for them - must be low on SE, need another shot, was too cold, blah,blah. Now, I realize the truth is they were SLOWER, didn't have the energy of these newer calves.

It has been my experience that bigger calves of any breed are always slower to get up and in certain conditions that can be a problem but as long as the weather is mild and the mother is attentive everything should be ok. Those little angus calves seem to jump up right away but I just don't like those small tiny calves. I want a good size calf at weaning.
market wise though you'd be better off with a angus on the charolias than the simm. to much cont. will cost you overall
 
ALACOWMAN":2n8kb7hc said:
MountainFarmChar":2n8kb7hc said:
Jeanne - Simme Valley":2n8kb7hc said:
The old simmies had much heavier BW than they have now - but they were lots bigger COWS and could easily handle the bigger calves.
The real old Simmies (70's type) had good feet & legs. It was when we went chasing the showring wanting TALL cattle, they got gutless & bad legged. Fortunately for us, we wanted to win in the show ring, but volume & structure were more important to us as a breeder.
BUT, the old heavy BW calves were much slower getting going than the new modern type calves. I used to make excuses for them - must be low on SE, need another shot, was too cold, blah,blah. Now, I realize the truth is they were SLOWER, didn't have the energy of these newer calves.


It has been my experience that bigger calves of any breed are always slower to get up and in certain conditions that can be a problem but as long as the weather is mild and the mother is attentive everything should be ok. Those little angus calves seem to jump up right away but I just don't like those small tiny calves. I want a good size calf at weaning.
market wise though you'd be better off with a angus on the charolias than the simm. to much cont. will cost you overall

I agree, I don't need to cross a Simm bull with my Char cows that's why I'm crossing with a solid red Beefmaster bull. The solid yellow calves seem to sell as well as the solid gray calves.
 
I've had 3 heifer calves in the past few days out of heifers. The 3 calves had bw of 74, 76, & 78. If they had been bull calves, I figure they would have been in the mid 80's which is good weights. Calves jumped right up - sucked - and proceeded to buck & play. Just the way I like it!! :p
 
I have used sim in my comm. herd and now Gv cross now the Sim X Gv are out standing cows. I worked a big sale up here in canada in the end of october, 200 Sim cow/calf pairs all most all were fullbloods, fullblood and fleckvieh, fullblood fleck and polled some real out crosses. The color range was from solid red fullblood flecks to yellow and white spots all were solid cows, some were a bit big mainly the older cows. The sale was a barn burner and some cattle were bought for export to the US when the border opens , and were being put into embryo programs until then.
 

Latest posts

Top