Some simmentals

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

I'm bored. Winds are blowing too hard to do much outside. So, I will entertain with some recent photos I shot.
This first photo is a Feb Grandmaster purebred heifer. She is standing on a slope, so don't be too hard on her

Here is another Feb purebred, but she is by Movin Forward. Since both Feb heifers are bred and owned for my daughter, she is selling this one in our Missouri State Association sale in the spring. I keep telling her she can not keep all of them!

This one is a 3/4 blood by Upgrade. She is a March. A bit more heavy on the front end, but still a nice girl!

This one is an April purebred, sired by Cut Above (Fat Butt), still needs some depth but has tons of power. She is WIDE!

This is a fall calf, an Oct bull by Rendition (his dam is a Summer Sister). He has a twin that is IDENTICAL to him. I think it would be fun in the fall to run them in our breed sale together and have the buyer choose which one he wants! The cow laying in the background is the granddam to the first two heifers pictured, and the dam of the Fat Butt heifer. Oh, and my Corgi helping me...

And this is what happened last night! Our 16 x 8 foot shed in the bull pen got blown over the fence and almost on the highway So, as soon as the wind dies down, I have to figure out how to get it back in the pasture, fix the fence torn out, and figure out a way to keep it from launching again! Luckily, no cattle got out!!! But our 11 month old bull and steer are having fun chasing the heifers around... :banana:

 

[chippie]

You really have some top quality stock. Thanks for sharing the pics.

Yikes! about your shed. We've had some blow over, but never get outside of the fence. They are tied down with dead men now.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

aside from the rear legs on the two, i like the first 3....

 

[sim.-ang.king]

I like'em, and the bull calf looks a lot like one I had last year.
I'm with you on this wind and rain has me holed up to, and after getting soaking wet this morning feeding hay i'm glad to give myself a day off.

 

[J&D Cattle]

Nice looking cattle.

We got lucky here and didn't get any of the wind. Good luck with the shed.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

You really have some top quality stock. Thanks for sharing the pics.

Yikes! about your shed. We've had some blow over, but never get outside of the fence. They are tied down with dead men now.

What is a dead men? I up for anything! We ripped a small hole in the backside bringing it back over the fence... and got the fence repaired before dark. But we still have to set the shed back up in the corner and secure it some way. And the luck of it, as soon as the wind died down enough to move it, it started pouring cats and dogs! We were soaked by the time we were done, and got our pick up stuck in the pasture which had to be pulled out by the tractor!!!

Thanks for the compliments all, most of our cattle are the result of AI genetics for several years now. They look straight because they are standing on an incline. We have quiet a bit of "hilly" terrain out here!

 

[highgrit]

Didn't know you sold twins as breeding stock, that's a bad trait to be passing along. Nice looking bunch of heifers. Pictures don't
do justice most of the time.

 

[cow pollinater]

What is a dead men?

An anchor. For example, bury a large rock under each corner post with a wire wrapped around it and then tie the wire to each barn leg.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Didn't know you sold twins as breeding stock, that's a bad trait to be passing along. Nice looking bunch of heifers. Pictures don't
do justice most of the time.

Why are twins a bad trait?
It's not likely genetics (the cow has never thrown twins). Sold a twin bull last year (twin to a heifer), and the bull's calves are now hitting the ground, no twins yet. He is servicing a big commercial herd. Maybe my naive-ness, but I can honestly say I have never had anyone I know select against twins for breeding animals. I know in most herds, including ours, twins are not desirable but if there is no likely genetic link in a lineage I will still use a bull (AI). On a side note, their dam is doing a fantastic job raising the boys. She looks great, and they look great, and they are not on creep, just hay and milk. That is something I know I would want to reproduce!
I agree about pictures, seems you can never get a perfect one. Thanks for the complement, we cull hard and cut most of our bulls (spring crop brought ONE bull we kept, the rest we cut). They have to be at the top to keep their jewels. Most get shown all spring and summer, so we get a pretty good feel of what others think about our boys (our kids have won champion bred and owned bull at Missouri State Fair for two years in a row now). Our heifers have to make good cows, or down the road they go. My kids have learned that all animals have to pull their weight around here, even if they are a favorite show heifer that is now a pasture cow. They get no grain or supplement, so we like to say "we don't raise show cattle, we show cattle we raise". A great example is the cow in the background of the red bull calf; she has raised 5 calves in 6 years, and breeds back early every year. She has been to 3 National shows as a cow, placing 4th overall pair in 2009, 3rd overall pair in Iowa in 2010 and 4th overall pair in Missouri in 2011, along with winning Reserve Champion cow calf pair at Missouri State Fair in 2011. We retired her after that. Her daughter is now following in her footsteps (the dam to the Grandmaster heifer pictured).

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

What is a dead men?

An anchor. For example, bury a large rock under each corner post with a wire wrapped around it and then tie the wire to each barn leg.

In our rocky soil, you would not get 2 inches before hitting rock, thus burying a rock would not be possible unless I could get a hold of some dynamite! . What if you drove something like a piece of rebar or t-post into the ground real deep and then tied off to it, would that work? BTW, I did a quick search for "tying a building down with dead men", and you would not believe what came up Some search just need to be worded better, that is all.... :2cents:

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

A little work on the back legs of a couple of those heifers wouldn't hurt.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Here is a pic of the one bull that made it past the spring cutting group. Now mind you, he is not perfect, but he was allowed to stay a bull because of his low birth weight (73) and high weaning weight (785, no creep no hay, just grass and milk). He has extra leather up front that I do not care for, but he will add value to a commercial herd as a bull. Here he is, unclipped, no grain, just hay and grass. He is 10 months old in this picture. And he is standing on a big incline (did I mention it is hilly out here?). He is an embryo calf sired by Triple C Invasion

Here is a photo of his dam, a 15 year old cow out of Nebraska who has 87 calves in production.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

The cow is nice. Good running gears under her.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Here is another heifer, she is an April sired by Felt Next Big Thing.

We have several Spring heifers (7), and on our limited acres we need to sell a few head (we are pushing 34 head on 45 acres right now). If we have another drought year, we will really be hurting. I am having to consign several pairs to our spring sale to cut some numbers down, which I do not like doing. I guess the hard part of this business is letting go of some good ones because you can not keep them all! We hope to consign a spring heifer, a 2 year old Club King due to calf the end of this month with a Grandmaster heifer calf (man, she is developing a pretty udder!), a Preferred Beef 4 year old cow (the one that raised the bull pictured above) due in March, and the bull. Then, cut several bulls and sell them shortly after weaning in May. That should help relieve some pressure!

 

[glacierridge]

Didn't know you sold twins as breeding stock, that's a bad trait to be passing along. Nice looking bunch of heifers. Pictures don't
do justice most of the time.

I would normally agree, but if these calves are 200% for sure identical, not fraternal, it might be alright. Identical would be a freak spilt of the egg and not readily passed on genetically from my understanding on human twinning (we have lots of fraternal twins in the family tree)

A lot of nice calves here, and the one that you stated wasn't very DEEP might very easily make up capacity with her length and width...
I'm a believer that those can also play into how much volume a cow can handle.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

FSR - really nice looking cattle. They consistantly show depth & thickness - a "must"!

We built a 12 x 24, 3-sided shed. Before we could use it, it blew over. But, ours blew over in a rain storm in December. So, the morning we found it flipped over, the roof was FROZEN to the ground. When we flipped it back upright, the roof stayed on the ground. We had to totally dismantle the roof & rebuilt it. We had a small air space between the top of the back wall & the roof, but we cut it open to about a 6" space. We drove long steel posts in ground at both front corners, heated them & made a "loop". Then we tied the two roof corners down. That's been 3 years now. We built a 2nd shed the exact same, but made it 1' shorter in height. Hoping this was less likely to get flipped over. But, we also anchored it!!!

 

[plumber_greg]

I dunno, there must be something wrong with me, I'll take twins. I almost always lose a calf or two, and a twin can be grafted on another cow pretty easily. One cow I had that raised twin steers, when I was taking them to the feedlot, both gave me a premium on the carcass. Can't remember how much it was, both good calves.
Granted, not all cows can raise twins, but I feel most of mine can if they have them. FS, good bunch of cattle, I building numbers of purebred angus up, and my next move is a simmi bull to breed them to. Simi-angus heifers will them replace my commercial cows. gs

 

[inyati13]

I like them Simmentals.

 

[highgrit]

Greg you sold them as steers not breeding stock. I am sure some twins could be at the top of the breed and good prospects, but both??

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I totally agree that twins can be handy to put on a cow that lost a calf. BUT - and that's a big but - cows having twins don't always just lay down & spit them out alive & healthy & then jump up & feed both of them to weaning and breed back in a timely manner - without assistance.
YES, SOMETIMES they do! BUT, there's that big but again! - many, many, many times they're a tangled up mess, or she spits out two dead calves, she's thinner than her contemporaries, she retains her placenta, she doesn't breed back or she breeds back late, etc etc.
The benefit never outweights the problems - to ME. And, it's a rare, rare, year that I don't have 1 set of twins - more than likely 2 or 3 sets.
Had two sets within a few hours of each other last year. One cow was carrying embryos - nice as could be spit out twins - both dead - both ET heifers! Then another cow spit out two bull calves - as the 2nd one came out, I grabbed his legs & drug him into the pen of the first cow. Happy camper, had her new baby! Yeah, they made me money and both cows never had a lick of problems. But, dang that but keeps showing up -- that is the exception, not the rule with twins.