The best bull to create replacement females.

[hornedfrogbbq]

Ok, this is just an exercise but something I'm interested in everyone's opinion. IF you excluded EVERYTHING else and just focused on wanting replacement females (without sexed semen), what bull would you use? So I am thinking we are talking about fertility, frame size of mature cow matching your forage and environment, milk matching your environment, etc.

Obviously you are going to get some bull calves but assume you make them all steers and they are sold. So no replacement bulls being retained...just focus on the best female making bull out there. I know the steers are revenue so you want them to grow and score when sold (regardless if at wean, fed out and sold fat or taken through and sold on a value grid) so i realize what i'm asking, to only focus on the females he is going to produce, leaves alot of debate short. I'm most interested in which AI bulls you all think make the best replacements and why.

I fully realize the answer to this will vary depending on personal experiences and choices as well as geographic and forage differences.

For our two cents, we like the females out of CC&7, Hoover Dam, Connealy Consensus and his son 7229 and his son Hickok, SAV Bruiser has some good females in our program...super efficient. I'd prefer your opinion on bulls that you can still buy semen on to keep it relevant to today. We LOVE Connealy Impression daughters but with his death this spring, his semen's availability will soon dry up.

 

[callmefence]

For replacement females I don't care what his name is.
But you can bet he's gonna have a hump and long ears.

 

[Douglas]

Given your point
" ...So I am thinking we are talking about fertility, frame size of mature cow matching your forage and environment, milk matching your environment, etc."

I would think you also want hybrid vigor in your replacements to answer some of those valued traits, so the bulls need to give you that and the breed of cow you have helps determine which bull to use. Takes two to tango

 

[Son of Butch]

IF you excluded EVERYTHING else and just focused on wanting replacement females (without sexed semen),
what bull would you use?

IF I were to focus 100% on producing the best replacement female possible she would be a F1.
One of the 2 breeds would be Black Angus and which bull and his breed would depend on the breed of the cow herd.

The bulls you mentioned would all work well on pure Hereford cows.
I have CC&7 in the tank, but he's dead now and his price has gone up to $75.
My cows are mostly angus, only 6 don't have any angus blood and only 3 of those 6 are purebred, so CC&7 will get used
on them the next couple of years in hope of replacement females from them.

 

[True Grit Farms]

Uno Mas.

 

[Ebenezer]

A son of the best suited cow in your herd.

 

[gpl]

Good Angus suggestions so far. I'll add Broken Bow, Absolute and Peerless to the list.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Hooks Shear Force by far the best. Top 1% for CE, BW, Stayability, YG, REA and API. Top 2% for Maternal Calving Ease, top 5% for milk. Finding semen is difficult though.
https://herdbook.org/simmapp/action/ani ... er=2081939

Second choice is going to be LRS Elevate.
https://herdbook.org/simmapp/action/ani ... er=2842534

 

[gizmom]

I think SAV Pioneer would be on the list for making great females.

Gizmom

 

[Tbrake]

Chisum 6175 has put the best females in my herd without a doubt.
I've thought about breeding some of my angus heifers to simi bull uno mas, but I'm afraid the steers won't grow.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Chisum 6175 has put the best females in my herd without a doubt.
I've thought about breeding some of my angus heifers to simi bull uno mas, but I'm afraid the steers won't grow.

Use Elevate (genex), the steer mates will grow!

 

[Bright Raven]

Chisum 6175 has put the best females in my herd without a doubt.
I've thought about breeding some of my angus heifers to simi bull uno mas, but I'm afraid the steers won't grow.

Use Elevate (genex), the steer mates will grow!

I have used Uno Mas maybe more than you and I agree. I think Elevate beats Uno Mas. The exception was Raina, she is a very nice cow out of Uno Mas.

 

[Hogtiming]

Final answer, And his son pioneer, Hoover dam. And a few upwards

 

[jdg]

A son of the best suited cow in your herd.

Once you've spend enough seasons doing the hard work of making your cows fit your environment, applying the right amount of culling pressure, Ebenezer is right. No better way to improve your cow herd than letting nature do the work. This takes time. A great breeder (I do not use this term lightly) Ed Oliver once told me, "There are no shortcuts." I had told him about a partnership i was starting utilizing embryos from a 50 year deep forage development program, that had been applying a lot of fertility pressure without supplements. I didn't understand why he couldn't see the wisdom of piggybacking off the line breeding success of another seedstock producer who'd been applying the types of selection criteria I wanted to apply. Now, if my partnership would have been with my neighbor, Ed might have been wrong. But he wasn't, and I wasn't totally wrong either. You can make progress utilizing the genetics of other programs, but you must use a lot of due diligence to select the right program. Visit their ranch, ask the right questions, see their cattle, look at their forage base and supplemental feeding regimens, and consider climate. Does it look like your operation? Do their goals match yours? Eventually though, you can make better replacements for your farm than they can. I would say that you can help yourself with AI and ET work, but eventually, to make true progress in trying to improve your herd, you must select from within.

Hybrid vigor is a real thing. Every successful commercial cattlemen on this forum will probably agree. Be careful not to create a mongrelized herd if a consistent calf crop is your goal. With a breeding plan, you can accomplish this easily.

We were tasked with choosing an AI bull strictly for daughters. Most of the angus bulls people have listed I believe are the best cow makers from terminal bull programs. If you have the resources to feed these girls (great grass or supplements), they might make great cows. I do not have great grass as a base here in south georgia, so I have used bloodlines that do not support that much production. Be wary of numbers, they are only as good as the folks who have recorded them, and management has a way of propping them up.

A few of the black angus breeders I believe who are making good progress in their respective regions (just a few...proably 50 more i haven't been to) breeding maternal cattle are:
Diamond D Angus, MT
Cotton Angus, SD (Hyland Angus is right down the road and similar bred)
Octoraro, PA
Kinloch Farms, VA
Oliver Family Angus, GA
Hague Angus Ranch, NE
Sprenger Cattle Co., NE
JAD angus, NE

And of course the historic Wye Angus Plantation, MD. Over 50 years of line breeding for maternal characteristics. Definitely some inbreeding depression in my opinion, but crossed to other angus or other breeds, a heterosis pop.

Pinebank Angus, NZ. Also over 50 years of line breeding for forage performance with extreme fertility pressure. Pinebank and Wye cross well together, complimenting each other. Most of the programs listed above have utilized at least one of these historic programs to strengthen their programs. The Pinebank cattle, like many of the Ohlde cattle, are extremely efficient converters of forages into meat and milk. This is a plus in low energy environments.

Ohlde is probably the crossover maternal breeder, that has placed more cow makers in terminal seedstock operations over the years. He has bred some very good maternal cattle. But do your research, some are not. Feet, fertility, temperament, and adult size can all be issues in his cattle in low to moderate input systems.

Bradley 3 ranch in Texas has the only mainstream black angus program i've seen that is as ruthless culling for fertility as Pinebank. They make zero excuses for their cattle, and do a great job developing their bulls. I would personally only use pedigrees that feature their cattle, and not the AI sires they use to increase their EPDs and attract a wider audience. Those AI daughters have never made it the decade it takes to get into their flush program. I trust people who don't flush cows until they made it over 10 years under their management.

I've sampled enough from these programs that i'm done using AI and am large enough to source my black angus bulls internally now. If for whatever reason AI is still necessary, I'd consider researching a few of the herds i mentioned that our most similar to your environment, and talk with the breeders to get their recommendations. If they are good listeners, they usually can pick a better selection from their herd than we can.

Okay, I'm gonna put the coffee down.

good luck.

 

[Tbrake]

Chisum 6175 has put the best females in my herd without a doubt.
I've thought about breeding some of my angus heifers to simi bull uno mas, but I'm afraid the steers won't grow.

Use Elevate (genex), the steer mates will grow!

How is the shape and birthweight on his calves?
Spring or fall?
I tend to want something pretty high CED for spring calving because they are always 10-15 lbs heavier.
Falls I can be a lot less picky for heifers

 

[BC]

Hornfrogbbq, you have not told us what part of the country these cattle will be located. Having environmentally adapted cattle is the most important factor. The cow has to be able to raise a big healthy calf and get rebred on the available forage.

That said, in my part of the world if I was specifically trying to raise replacement females, I would use the thickest made, cleanest sheathed Santa Gertrudis, Brangus or Beefmaster bull I could afford. The steer calves may not top the market but their sisters will more than make up the difference.

 

[76 Bar]

A son of the best suited cow in your herd.

:tiphat: Thank you JDG for extrapolating on Ebenezer's deceptively succinct post. Remarkably well written.

 

[Ebenezer]

succinct - had to look it up. Did not know if it was a disease that needed treating or not. :? Glad to know I am deceptive with the truth. Thank you for the complement. I'll put it with all of the my "I love me" stuff, other plaques of grandeur and accolades unless that matchbox is full.

 

[Bright Raven]

Chisum 6175 has put the best females in my herd without a doubt.
I've thought about breeding some of my angus heifers to simi bull uno mas, but I'm afraid the steers won't grow.

Use Elevate (genex), the steer mates will grow!

How is the shape and birthweight on his calves?
Spring or fall?
I tend to want something pretty high CED for spring calving because they are always 10-15 lbs heavier.
Falls I can be a lot less picky for heifers

Tbrake. Explain the comparisons in birth weights between fall and spring. That is interesting.

 

[Tbrake]

Tbrake. Explain the comparisons in birth weights between fall and spring. That is interesting.[/quote]

My spring calves are always 10-15 pounds bigger, Sometimes more. (Springs are born jan/ feb, falls aug/sept/oct). Some of the same bulls, and very similar cows. I have heard this from some old timer neighbors several times, but I'm finding it to be very true for me.
I only explanation I have heard is the cold weather causes the cow to pump more blood, causing more nutrients going to the calf. True or not, I have no idea. Last winter was the coldest I remember, and I had some big calves. Averages close to 100lbs. Having calves now, some out of the same bull been averaging 75 lbs.
talking to the county agent recently told me nutrition in the last trimester has very little to do with calf size.
I graze a lot of wheat and turnips in the winter and used to pull the cows off about a month before calving. I had bigger than avrage calves last year, but so did the cows who where on decent hay and 3lbs of grain. Looking back though my records, the cows on wheat had calves 2-3 lbs bigger. Decent sample size 75 births on wheat/ turnips 119 births on stockpiled fescue/ hay/ 3lbs grain.
Only 35 fall cows due, I will record their bw.

I'm not the only one who had large spring calves, I've talked to people all over who are saying the same thing. General theory has been the abnormally cold winter over most of the country.