Some Calf Pictures

[creekdrive]

Had a bit of spare time tonight so thought I'd share some pictures instead of just lurking like I usually do haha
These calves are mostly April born, all out of commercial cows, sired by a tan Charolais bull. This is his first group of calves and so far we're quite pleased. Loving the big wide tops he is throwing. Hopefully the calves are well received by the buyers when they head to the auction in a few weeks.

Red heifer out of a black cow

we did get a couple horned calves from the bull which we'd prefer not to deal with. This guy I thought I pasted but obviously did not get enough paste on to do the job. Still a pretty nice calf though other than the horns.

the other horned steer. Cow is a 4 yr old Gelbvieh x Sim. Hopefully next year I can do a better job at identifying which ones are going to end up with horns and not miss any like what happened with this calf.

same pair, different angle

I can't get a very good picture of this steer, but he is a tank!

another big steer out of a SimAngus cow

a nice tan heifer that will probably get to stay as a replacement. Out of a real good 11 yr old SimAngus cow.

red heifer out of a Angus X Shorthorn (1/8th) cow

tan steer out of a Gelbvieh cross cow

a little younger (May 17) heifer calf out of a black 2nd calver. Depending on what the market does in the next few weeks this one might get to stick around for awhile since she is a rat tail. Watched a sale last week and there was very little dock for rat tail calves so might just sell her.

This last one isn't sired by the Char bull - just a fancy heifer calf that wanted her picture taken too

As always thanks for letting me share.

 

[Muddy]

She surely didn't look like a rattail to me. Nice calves!

 

[creekdrive]

She surely didn't look like a rattail to me. Nice calves!

If you look close you can see she has less than half the amount of hair on her tail switch compared to the other calves. I've seen a lot worse rat tails, but she's definitely still a rat. If she wasn't she'd have a full tail switch like the grey steer in the 5th picture. She also has the curly/wire-y hair texture of a rat tail. She is a nice enough calf though and it is probably borderline whether they would dock her or not for it. Prices are high right now and not seeing much dock for anything, but if they start coming down that dock will go up.

Another picture of her from behind that shows how little of a switch she has and no, it wasn't frozen or stepped on.

 

[FlyingLSimmentals]

Nice Pictures and Good Stout Calves. Them Dark Red Ones are my Favorite.

 

[frieghttrain]

:clap: Calves look darn good, I prefer the reds as well.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Nice calves! Any photos of their sire?

 

[Bright Raven]

Very good pictures of nice cattle. All of them look good.

 

[Farm Fence Solutions]

Nice looking calves.

 

[creekdrive]

Thanks all! My favorites are the red calves too but there is no denying when it comes to selling commercial calves Charolais is usually right up at the top. Our commercial herd is a bit of a mix of everything and using Char bulls should hopefully leave a more uniform group and add a little frame. Char cross calves are in good demand at the auction we sell at, so it makes sense to use them. Hope to buy another Char bull for next year and that should leave us with a good sized group of commercial cows bred Char. The rest of our commercial herd will probably be bred to home raised Angus bulls. We feel it's good to use some of our own bulls on our commercial cows, as it gives us a good feel how the bloodlines we are using will work in a commercial setting which is what matters to our bull customers. It also will leave us the option of choosing commercial replacements from the angus sired groups as we don't intend to keep a lot of the Char heifers.

Nice calves! Any photos of their sire?

I don't have any great pictures of him. He's not a very photogenic animal. He's a decent enough bull but not really special by any means. He does move exceptionally well. One of the most free moving animals I've seen.

A picture of him from this past July. So would be about 28 months or so in this picture.

We tried something a little different last year and kept back a group of purebred heifers to sell as bred heifers. They sell the first part of December and I'm excited, yet nervous. I think they look great, but I'm sure I'm biased.
Some crappy cell phone pictures from the last time we checked their pasture:

the heifer on the right is one I'd really like to keep, but can't keep them all!

I need to get some better pictures of some of our purebred angus calves. There is some very sweet heifers this year. Very pleased with them so far. Planning to keep almost all of the straight angus heifers for now and will decide down the road whether we try the bred heifer thing again or go some other route with them.

Sorry for being so long winded!

 

[Nesikep]

I like that heifer on the right in the last picture as well.. That Char does make for some nice meaty backs and butts. Always love seeing the pics!

 

[uplandnut]

As usual, very nice looking calves! I like the heifers as well.

 

[elkwc]

Nice pics and cattle. They would look good in most pastures.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

Great looking set of calves! I really like the red heifer on the far right in the last picture.

 

[Bestoutwest]

Those are some very, very nice looking cattle. I especially like the last picture and that group of heifers.