The fall herd

[Dave]

The sun was shining this afternoon so I went out and took pictures of the fall herd in the front pasture.


This is a mixed herd. A real box of crayons. Primarily Angus, both red and black, but there is also one of nearly every other breed.



They get bred to Charolais bulls. There is about 120 cows and 8 bulls out there.



So you know what the calves look like.



This is a Correntie cow that is an over grown roping heifer. That calf to the right is her calf. And she was bred by a big char bull like the one standing behind her.



The question is who is the calf in the middle daddy? Nothing but char bulls and she is a cow who has been in this group for a few years.



These cows run up in the hills 6 months of the year. The fences may not be the greatest. One of the neighbor's bulls must have came for a visit. But as Neighbor B says a Hereford calf is better than no calf at all. It happens. But everyone runs pretty much top notch bulls. So it might not be the exact breed you want but you can be assured that it has good genetics.

 

[Stocker Steve]

15 cows per bull?

 

[Dave]

15 cows per bull?

I thought someone might notice that. Originally there was 100 cows and 5 bulls. Neighbor B's son sort off 20 late calving cows to bring up here. He left 3 bulls in with them. So the next day they just came along with the cows. Bulls aren't doing anything but standing around and eating. Just waiting to go out with the spring calvers in a couple months. So I guess this is as good a place to hang out as being in the bull pasture with all the other bulls.

 

[uplandnut]

I thought about trying to use a charolais bull on my cows but I'm scared it would backfire on me.

 

[VaCowman]

I cleaned up with a Charolais bull a few years ago. He was 18mos old and the neighbor wasn't using him until spring. I got him for 60d to clean up behind my AI. Man, I really liked those calves. (I didn't turn him in with heifers, just cows) It was easy to tell where AI stopped and cleanup started with him. Those cleanup calves were fancy calves and really mashed the scales at sale time. I'd like to do it again, but the calves we do not keep to finish/direct market are typicaly sold at local market via value added sale that discounts anything red/orange. Smokey calves go with the blacks, but those reds get docked $.10. I've used SimAngus bulls for last several years and it works good, just maybe not quite as good. I think a straight simmental would give me more punch of heterosis than a F1 SA. Just bought a SA last fall so looks like I'll be on that bandwagon for a while longer. I kept with the SA because any heifers that are not AI sired are sold as replacements OR bred heifers and those black heifers just sell better in our neck of the woods.