Some down-under cattle

[Putangitangi]

I've looked at a lot of cattle on this board over the last few months and some have been fantastic, some haven't, but I've appreciated seeing them all.

Here's a cow for which I have significant 'barn blindness': she was the first pedigree heifer born here and has become rather a pet - still runs with the rest of the herd, of course. Fortunately she's at the top of the production ranking in my herd. Please feel free to tell me what you think is right or wrong with her.

This is her current calf, just on three months old in the photo.

 

[OK Jeanne]

very nice animals - the bull calf looks like he will be well
muscled; probably a keeper. The cow appears to have
a wide back with plenty of room for forage - how tall is
she? What was the calf's birthweight?

 

[mnmtranching]

Very nice cattle, the calf looks older than 3 months.

 

[Putangitangi]

I've been pretty slack about measuring much more than weight. The cow is around 51 inches - I'll have to check that - and her weight at present is around 1250, although I tend to weigh straight off the grass, not wanting to have them all standing around for hours emptying out and again, haven't weighed for a while, but shouldn't be too far out for her condition at present.

The calf was 79 at birth, her sixth calf. I took the picture on 2 Feb and he was born 4 November.

 

[Alice]

Oh, those are a couple of beautiful animals...thanks for posting them!

Alice

 

[OK Jeanne]

Very handsome pair --- I suspect most folks on this board
would like to have a pasture full that looked as good!

 

[blk mule]

Wish every cow i owned was a duplicate copy of her.

blk mule

 

[OK Jeanne]

What kind of bird is that beside your name?

I have friends in northland,... Whangarei.

 

[Putangitangi]

Thank you, you're a very friendly bunch!

Wish every cow i owned was a duplicate copy of her.

So do I! :lol: Now I'll have to show you my worst cow and you can tell me what you really think!

Her sons have always been very mature-looking bulls from very early on. I used her first son as a herd sire over the commercial herd. The calf in the picture was sired by an EXT son I still have here.

The bird is a Paradise Duck or Putangitangi. They are endemic to NZ and the one in the picture was part of our family for a couple of years. Whangarei is two hours south of here, our nearest major centre.

 

[goddy]

Gidday

Nice moderate cattle with lots to like. My wife and I ran Simmentals at Wellsford for 5 years so nice to see a post from down that direction.
cheers

Goddy

 

[*Cowgirl*]

Nice pair.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Very nice pair.
We have friends in Tuakau. Our daughter spent a year there in an exchange program. We have an open invitation, but have never been able to get away. Would LOVE to visit your country. Someday----

 

[preston39]

Put...,

Nice...very nice. Understand why she is at the top................. and would be in any breeding program. Is she a Rito or Ideal cow? Udder.....how old is she?

 

[ALACOWMAN]

nice look'in moma. wish i could see her udder better though

 

[Putangitangi]

She's sired by a NZ bull with US g-sire and US gg-sire on the maternal side. I think some of her pedigree is not highly regarded in some parts. However, she does what she does pretty well.

She was born Aug '98, so coming up to nine years old. Her udder is fairly capacious, but still holding up well. I'll get a better-lit photo today if I can - it's a bit hard in the very bright mid-summer clear days!

Another couple of photos of the pair might make them look far less beautiful. They're going over the scales this morning, so I'll do a bit of measuring of height as well.

I guess I got lucky in picking a good cow as the pet, rather than an ugly old thing which produced uglier calves. She took to eating maize/corn before she weaned (we don't routinely feed the cattle any supplements here) and tamed right down. I took her to a couple of shows and she won a ribbon once 8) - but she was the only one there, since it's such a small place and there aren't many black cattle around here.

Goddy, my mother lived in Wellsford for a couple of years, now lives in Whangarei. You'd have come across the Simmentals from Parapara up here, I guess? I can't remember the stud prefix, nor find them in the database.

Here's an uglier pair: a two-year heifer and heifer calf. I kept her because she's the 3/4 sister of another 2yr-old from a really good performing cross-bred (Jersey not so far back) family.

And the 1/2-sister/aunt:

And now one to really get stuck into, I should think:

First daughter of the first cow, sire Traveler 71, five years old, great figures, less-great appearance, feel free to tell me what you see as the major faults.
Not all of my feet are particularly good; something I'm working on. And I don't think there's nearly enough back-end in many of the cattle, but that might partly be a feeding issue here.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

you got some fine lookin cattle, looks like you know what your doing

 

[OK Jeanne]

Only thing I could suggest is a more "beefy" hindquarter;
but you did say there was jersey in the background.
Very nice cattle.

 

[Putangitangi]

I'll have to be a bit more careful with my labelling: the two cow-calf pairs above are cross-breds, the others (including all these below) are/will be registered Angus.

Here's a 4.5month calf by Future Direction, weight 470#. He looks really nice in the paddock, but again, I suspect he lacks in the back end.

A three month old heifer by my EXT son, current weight 368#. I very much like this heifer, she has real presence, looks nice and even and reasonably deep in the body for such a young calf. Her mother has horrible feet and her sire has very nice legs and feet.

4.5 month heifer calf, sire Ardrossan Connection X15, current weight 480#. Obviously I'd have preferred her to stand properly, but these are all just pictures in the paddock. This is the daughter of the last cow in my post above.

I wean the occasional 660# bull at just over six months (if the grass runs out) and the heifers are generally around 575# at the same age. This year's calves to date average 2.65# per day with nothing other than grass and milk. How does that compare to growth and weights in that part of the world?

I believe I can spot a good animal, but I'm still very inexpert at describing what is right or wrong in what I see. Any detailed comments on these would be very welcomed, good and bad. None of the calves yet has EBVs available.

 

[Jake]

the only thing I would change in those cattle is to add some depth of chest and some thickness through the rear quarters.

Do you import a lot of semen?

 

[Putangitangi]

Thank you for your comment. I buy semen for the registered cattle most of the time, occasionally use a bull I've bred if I need to. I closed my herd a few years ago, so new genetics only come in frozen in small tubes.
When I started I had to rely on the hoped-for expertise of the semen purveyors, many of whom had firm opinions on what I should do, most of which didn't really fit with what I wanted to do. Some of that was to do with my own pig-headedness but also my strong awareness that pasture conditions here are very different from those further south where most of the semen guys farm. Huge cattle won't work here and they were still the order of the day when I started. I had to rely mostly on numbers since there wasn't a lot of independent advice to be had in my region. More recently I've found a couple of people whose opinion I trust who've seen some of the bulls whose figures also suited my breeding programme and am having a few less disasters come calving time - not calving disasters as such, but animals which I would prefer to hide out the back of the farm. However, it's all been a tremendously interesting adventure which I'm still enjoying by the day and year!