Simmental Cattle

[shortybreeder]

I am looking for suggestions of simmental breeders in the Midwest (ideally MN or WI) that focus their breeding on maternal traits such as WW, Milk, MWW, MCE, and fertility with a secondary emphasis on carcass quality. Looking for purebred simmental, not really interested in buying SimAngus or commercial cattle. My goal is to have a base herd of registered purebreds (red would be nice.....) that I primarily focus on breeding for maternal traits and carcass traits secondary. After a few years of establishing this herd I would begin to develop a small herd of high quality SimAngus cattle with balanced maternal and carcass traits that I would sell as seedstock to commercial operators. These SimAngus females would then be bred to a strong terminal bull (either sim, char, or black angus) to produce great calves that will excel in the feedlot.
Thanks for your help!

--Good to be back

 

[Till-Hill]

http://www.oakmfarm.com/

Bought the majority of our herd from Matt and Lynn. They cows are bred to work and they still got some good looks. They have done very well in Denver showing. Buddy mine bought two bulls last year. They worked hard as he rented them out then brought them home on his cows and they still managed to gain some weight. That's the kind of yearling bulls they stick around a few years.

http://www.hookfarms.com/

We bought the lot 3 bull last year. Tom and Ed were pretty good to work with. Answered all my questions I had and in the Simmental breed having that Hook prefix can only help! Them two places would be where I would start.

 

[Lucky_P]

Hooks for sure. We're 'stacking' Hooks Shear Force 38K in our breeding program - using several sons & grandsons as our principal AI sires
Wilkinson Simmentals - http://wilkinsonfarmssimmentals.com/ sounds right up your alley, as well.
Gateway - http://www.gatewaysimmental.com/ - lots to like in their 'Lucky' lines...
Nichols Farms - you'll find Nichols bulls behind a lot of the good cattle that are out there today.
All the above are long-time Simmental breeders probably with something that'd work for you; but there are bound to be smaller, less well-known breeders out there with desirable cattle, as well. I'll be watching this thread for leads...

Probably don't have to tell you, but don't discount Shorthorns in your program. Have been extremely pleased with Shorthorn-sired calves out of our SimAngus and AngusXSimAngus cows... Haven't come back on top of the high-percentage Simmental cows with Shorthorn bulls, but I'll bet bulls like Waukaru Orion & W. Coppertop would produce some nice feeder calves out of SM cows.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Love the suggestions already! Hooks Shear Force is a bull that is hard to fault. My best females come from Shear Force or sons of his. When I find embryos sired by him, I snag them. They are usually pretty cheap (older genetics), and the resulting heifers are the ones I use for recips for other pregnancies. I have yet to see a bad Shear Force in production, just saying.
Gateway is another superb operation. Several gateway bulls in bull stud services.
There is a Nichols farm out here in MO (several of them around), and again good solid genetics.

They gave you some great results. The simmental breed has some real reliable EPD's, use them to your advantage.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

If I can find one i'm going to go with a Beef Maker son next, or something from Nichols.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

If I can find one i'm going to go with a Beef Maker son next, or something from Nichols.

We love our Beef Makers! People thought I was crazy when I used him on my only Angus heifer. We had a 50 pound calf that we just AId two weeks ago, as a yearling she weighed 900 pounds! She grew and grew, and has fantastic EPDs since her dam is a Pioneer and he has good numbers along with Beef Maker. They have great docility, and are the first to the bunk to eat. I AId her to Pays To Dream, hoping for a heifer, because it should be fantastic!

 

[Taurus]

Probably don't have to tell you, but don't discount Shorthorns in your program. Have been extremely pleased with Shorthorn-sired calves out of our SimAngus and AngusXSimAngus cows... Haven't come back on top of the high-percentage Simmental cows with Shorthorn bulls, but I'll bet bulls like Waukaru Orion & W. Coppertop would produce some nice feeder calves out of SM cows.

As long as these shorthorns are solid red and homozygous polled, you should be fine. Here they will discounted chromo shorthorns and their crosses. They also will discounted the whole lot if a chromo shorthorn cross is in the group....seen this happened few times at the sale barn I went two weeks ago. I do some calculations on the shorthorn groups vs your typical group in same weight class and you will see that the shorthorn group brought less $200-500 than the typical price for a feeder calf in same weight class. That would be $1000 per head for shorthorns vs $1500 per herd for typical feeder calves. That's why I suggested solid red shorthorns for your programs if you don't want to give up shorthorns.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

If I can find one i'm going to go with a Beef Maker son next, or something from Nichols.

We love our Beef Makers! People thought I was crazy when I used him on my only Angus heifer. We had a 50 pound calf that we just AId two weeks ago, as a yearling she weighed 900 pounds! She grew and grew, and has fantastic EPDs since her dam is a Pioneer and he has good numbers along with Beef Maker. They have great docility, and are the first to the bunk to eat. I AId her to Pays To Dream, hoping for a heifer, because it should be fantastic!

Beef Maker, and the Dream On line in a heifer should be about the perfect mix. Good Luck

 

[Lucky_P]

taurus,
Solid red, polled SH bulls only here. Calves have all been, for the most part, black or red - though some, out of cows carrying the Simmental color dilution gene, are brown - but those same cows throw brown calves as often as not, if bred to a black Angus bull.
Did get one chromed-up SH-sired calf this fall, out of a black cow with quite a bit of white on her underline - she probably has the Simmental spotting gene.
Not all SH bulls we've used were homo polled, and I've had 2 or 3 calves in the past 5 years, with horns. Not a major issue for me.

Sold the best group of steers I've ever raised, this fall; all sired by Waukaru Orion 2047 or Waukaru Coppertop 464, out of 3/4AN-1/4SM cows. About half were red, half black, one brown. No push-back from the buyer on any of them.

 

[shortybreeder]

Probably don't have to tell you, but don't discount Shorthorns in your program. Have been extremely pleased with Shorthorn-sired calves out of our SimAngus and AngusXSimAngus cows... Haven't come back on top of the high-percentage Simmental cows with Shorthorn bulls, but I'll bet bulls like Waukaru Orion & W. Coppertop would produce some nice feeder calves out of SM cows.

As long as these shorthorns are solid red and homozygous polled, you should be fine. Here they will discounted chromo shorthorns and their crosses. They also will discounted the whole lot if a chromo shorthorn cross is in the group....seen this happened few times at the sale barn I went two weeks ago. I do some calculations on the shorthorn groups vs your typical group in same weight class and you will see that the shorthorn group brought less $200-500 than the typical price for a feeder calf in same weight class. That would be $1000 per head for shorthorns vs $1500 per herd for typical feeder calves. That's why I suggested solid red shorthorns for your programs if you don't want to give up shorthorns.

If I were in the market for buying feeder calves to raise I would be picking up all of those chrome shorthorn calves... I had a bull calf last year out of Creole 135 and he was really fancy with all of his chrome and I knew he'd get beat up if I sold him at the salesbarn so I raised him myself and I don't regret it one bit... He was born July 12, weighed him February 1st at 600 pounds (adj 205 of 677), put him on a grain diet in the old barn (weighed his feed morning and night at ~2.5% body weight with free choice hay) and when we took him to county weigh-in on August 5th he weighed 1290... That's 690 pounds of gain in 185 days, or 3.73 pounds per day average gain... I will also confess there were a couple days I missed his morning feeding because I ran out of time before school... He got Grand Champion Rate of Gain in a county well known for producing high performance cattle. The year before the Champion Rate of Gain was also a chromed up shorthorn that averaged almost 4lbs/day. I believe the buyers just use the chrome as an excuse to save some money up front and increase profits down the road.

 

[shortybreeder]

Probably don't have to tell you, but don't discount Shorthorns in your program. Have been extremely pleased with Shorthorn-sired calves out of our SimAngus and AngusXSimAngus cows... Haven't come back on top of the high-percentage Simmental cows with Shorthorn bulls, but I'll bet bulls like Waukaru Orion & W. Coppertop would produce some nice feeder calves out of SM cows.

I am not discounting the shorthorns by any means; just diversifying the herd and trying to produce seedstock that will be in high demand. There are people who want shorthorns, people who want simmentals, and people who want gelbvieh for their maternal traits so I am trying to have some cattle for each of those buyers. Then I can also see for myself which breeds perform best in our program. I figure I've already got a solid foundation in the shorthorn side so now I'm looking for suggestions on where to start with the other breeds.

Thanks for supporting shorthorns though!

 

[Taurus]

Probably don't have to tell you, but don't discount Shorthorns in your program. Have been extremely pleased with Shorthorn-sired calves out of our SimAngus and AngusXSimAngus cows... Haven't come back on top of the high-percentage Simmental cows with Shorthorn bulls, but I'll bet bulls like Waukaru Orion & W. Coppertop would produce some nice feeder calves out of SM cows.

As long as these shorthorns are solid red and homozygous polled, you should be fine. Here they will discounted chromo shorthorns and their crosses. They also will discounted the whole lot if a chromo shorthorn cross is in the group....seen this happened few times at the sale barn I went two weeks ago. I do some calculations on the shorthorn groups vs your typical group in same weight class and you will see that the shorthorn group brought less $200-500 than the typical price for a feeder calf in same weight class. That would be $1000 per head for shorthorns vs $1500 per herd for typical feeder calves. That's why I suggested solid red shorthorns for your programs if you don't want to give up shorthorns.

If I were in the market for buying feeder calves to raise I would be picking up all of those chrome shorthorn calves... I had a bull calf last year out of Creole 135 and he was really fancy with all of his chrome and I knew he'd get beat up if I sold him at the salesbarn so I raised him myself and I don't regret it one bit... He was born July 12, weighed him February 1st at 600 pounds (adj 205 of 677), put him on a grain diet in the old barn (weighed his feed morning and night at ~2.5% body weight with free choice hay) and when we took him to county weigh-in on August 5th he weighed 1290... That's 690 pounds of gain in 185 days, or 3.73 pounds per day average gain... I will also confess there were a couple days I missed his morning feeding because I ran out of time before school... He got Grand Champion Rate of Gain in a county well known for producing high performance cattle. The year before the Champion Rate of Gain was also a chromed up shorthorn that averaged almost 4lbs/day. I believe the buyers just use the chrome as an excuse to save some money up front and increase profits down the road.

I think you are missing the main point. I had some chrome shorthorns in the past and I wasn't happy about how much they brought at the sale barn so I sold all chrome cows and kept the solid red shorthorn and I don't regret it at all. If you want to sells the shorthorn TO commercial operators, they BETTER be solid red or at least chrome free. The commercial operators want cows that is making money for them, not losing money.

 

[shortybreeder]

If I were in the market for buying feeder calves to raise I would be picking up all of those chrome shorthorn calves... I had a bull calf last year out of Creole 135 and he was really fancy with all of his chrome and I knew he'd get beat up if I sold him at the salesbarn so I raised him myself and I don't regret it one bit... He was born July 12, weighed him February 1st at 600 pounds (adj 205 of 677), put him on a grain diet in the old barn (weighed his feed morning and night at ~2.5% body weight with free choice hay) and when we took him to county weigh-in on August 5th he weighed 1290... That's 690 pounds of gain in 185 days, or 3.73 pounds per day average gain... I will also confess there were a couple days I missed his morning feeding because I ran out of time before school... He got Grand Champion Rate of Gain in a county well known for producing high performance cattle. The year before the Champion Rate of Gain was also a chromed up shorthorn that averaged almost 4lbs/day. I believe the buyers just use the chrome as an excuse to save some money up front and increase profits down the road.

I think you are missing the main point. I had some chrome shorthorns in the past and I wasn't happy about how much they brought at the sale barn so I sold all chrome cows and kept the solid red shorthorn and I don't regret it at all. If you want to sells the shorthorn TO commercial operators, they BETTER be solid red or at least chrome free. The commercial operators want cows that is making money for them, not losing money.

I understand that, but a lot of the best production shorthorn bulls are roan bulls and I'm not about to exclude those from my operation. I was just saying that if someone is buying feeders they shouldn't be afraid of the chrome calves. The fact that chrome shorthorns get docked at the salesbarn is repeated throughout here enough times I didn't feel it was necessary to say it again. People come here for advice, and numerous people on google will search through these forums for advice without ever leaving a comment or a trace that they were here, so I decided to state my opinion on chrome feeders for any people just passing through looking for information. Do commercial cow/calf operators want solid polled shorthorns? Yes. Should feeders discount chrome calves? No. Also, we are kind of getting away from the main point of this thread being that we are talking about shorthorns in a simmental thread...