Wagyu.....

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

Not all Wagyu are the same.

 

[Dave]

I don't care which breed it is. There is a huge difference between a mature bull and a weaning calf. How old are those bulls?

 

[Down in Dixie]

Here is one of my f1's at just over 2 months old back in august. Just put him in the weaning pen this afternoon. Maybe I can get him on the scales tomorrow and see what he weighs. Checked my record and I weighed him at 14 days old at 125 lbs.

 

[Dave]

I had the camera with today when I went by B's place so I took a couple pictures of the Wagyu cows from the road. I wish there had been more calves by the road but there was just this one. That is a 350 pound March calf. That is pretty representative of what the spring calves look like. The others are some of the cows that were along the road.. They are now grazing on an irrigated alfalfa field which the last cutting didn't get cut.

 

[Down in Dixie]

Look like ugly Wagyu cows to me. Glad they eat better than they look. The red is a F1 I posted earlier and the blacks are F3

 

[alacowman1]

I had the camera with today when I went by B's place so I took a couple pictures of the Wagyu cows from the road. I wish there had been more calves by the road but there was just this one. That is a 350 pound March calf. That is pretty representative of what the spring calves look like. The others are some of the cows that were along the road.. They are now grazing on an irrigated alfalfa field which the last cutting didn't get cut.

View attachment 37508View attachment 37509View attachment 37510

if I did raise em,it wouldn't be by no road frontage …you would need a drone to get a pic

 

[farmerjan]

To be honest, they do not look any worse than many of the dairy/beef crosses... most get that "dairy" butt... all legs, not much muscle... so alot of the angus /holstein crosses look like that. The simmental dairy ones have more of a hind end ... the limousin dairy crosses go either way.. the thing is the dairy/beef cross calves are getting more common here as they gain better and eat less than the straight holstein steers... and can kill at a lighter weight than a straight holstein steer so are preferred at more of the kill plants. A good holstein steer is going to often weigh 1400-1500 or more to get the needed muscles and fat for a good kill. Realize also that the dairy and dairy crosses often grade very well because there is not a ton of fat that needs to be trimmed...but they marble fairly well..... and we do not have the market for beef tallow so they don't like alot of fat cover... still to hang well, there needs to be a certain amount of fat or it makes the meat dry out and is tougher.... that is partly where they started wet aging the carcasses I think... less shrink and moister meat is more tender.

The dairy farmers that are breeding the bottom 1/3 or 1/2 of their milking cows are getting from $300 to $500 for these black baby calves... Bigger holstein calves will bring maybe $300. Seriously... my one dairy farmer has someone that picks up their black baby calves once a week... they have 200+ milking and his dad has 250 milking on another farm... so they have 5-15 or more a week to go to market...at least half are black calves.... so on average they have at least 1 or 2 calving a day if they were spread out... and they are getting $3-500 on the farm, no commission... that's what they quoted me... their milk tester... no bargains or breaks on the price for me there....and I only wanted 1 or at most 2, calves, to go on the nurse cow.

The black beef cross baby calves out of the dairy cows are usually very very hardy.... don't have any experience with the wagyu....

 

[bird dog]

Dave, would they be fairly small as three or four year old's? I seen some cows with horns go thru the sale barn last Friday that I think are Wagyu, but I'm not really sure. They had horns that curl up, and they did seem a bit flighty to me, and they were under 700 pounds as 3 or 4 year old's, and they were March/April bred. I have calves that are darn near as heavy as they were. I will have to ask my buddy what they were when I see him next; he is friends with the guy that sold them. He took a beating on them; could have bought all three for under $1000.

Those sound like Corrinte's or a cross with them. Were they black?

 

[gcreekrch]

Those sound like Corrinte's or a cross with them. Were they black?

Or possibly Dexters.

 

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

I don't care which breed it is. There is a huge difference between a mature bull and a weaning calf. How old are those bulls?

2-3 yr old bulls. 1800 to 2400
Jap Black wean avg 480.
Akaushi wean avg 525.
at 180 days

 

[Dave]

2-3 yr old bulls. 1800 to 2400
Jap Black wean avg 480.
Akaushi wean avg 525.
at 180 days

They certainly don't average that here. How much grain are they fed to get them that size. I know there was a load of F-1 calves that left here last fall that averaged 425. They were bigger than the purebred Wagyu. There is about 200 pairs in that field where I took the pictures. The cows weigh around 1,000. The biggest bulls weigh about 1,500. And the spring calves average around 300. They all just came off spending the summer on flat irrigated pasture. Good green grass all summer.

 

[CowboyRam]

Those sound like Corrinte's or a cross with them. Were they black?

I asked my friend and he said they were Corrinte's. A friend of his raises them. I could have bought all three for under $1000, just not sure I want any cows with horns. Although I do have a few that have scurs. If I was to put them with a Homozygous polled bull would I get a calf without horns.

 

[farmerjan]

Although there seems to be some problems with homo polled bulls being able to "mask" the horned gene with longhorns and corriente's and african horn gene breeds, a homo polled bull should put all polled calves on the ground. Our Angus bulls have put all polled calves on the ground from my longhorn cow to date.... and she won't top the scales at 900 lbs... has a "teacup" of an udder and raises the nicest FATTEST calves imaginable... all wean off her at 450-500 lbs or so... I am going to put her current steer calf in my freezer next year since he is mostly white with a few speckles... looks more like a white park ... his full sister last year (she had twin heifers but lost one) is pure black, an earlier heifer was white with black speckles, and another steer was pure black... the last 2 were from the same bull, and the first 2 were from the same bull but different than this last bull. She is currently bred back to a new young bull..... we'll see what we get next year.

 

[alacowman1]

Just be sure to put a bull that's homozygous for ass too

 

[Warren Allison]

I asked my friend and he said they were Corrinte's. A friend of his raises them. I could have bought all three for under $1000, just not sure I want any cows with horns. Although I do have a few that have scurs. If I was to put them with a Homozygous polled bull would I get a calf without horns.

For 25 years, my partner and I have kept 100-120 Corriente cows, We use reg Angus and Brangus bulls....some Ultrablacks a year or two.... and get 100-120- black polled calves each year.

 

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

They certainly don't average that here. How much grain are they fed to get them that size. I know there was a load of F-1 calves that left here last fall that averaged 425. They were bigger than the purebred Wagyu. There is about 200 pairs in that field where I took the pictures. The cows weigh around 1,000. The biggest bulls weigh about 1,500. And the spring calves average around 300. They all just came off spending the summer on flat irrigated pasture. Good green grass all summer.

We have cows that are up to 1,500 lb. I think our smallest is 1100 and she is still a heifer.
Those cows get fed developer mix everyday in small amounts, high fat tub and high mag mineral.
Most of the size comes through years of genetic modification using AI because we can't afford those expensive bulls. I believe our best hanging weight was 885 for the 7/8 Wagyu x Angus F4 steers. Try not to get them too fat...they don't need it.
Although in The last 5 years cost of high-end Wagyu semen has got ridiculous. It's not unusual to see the high end Wagyu semen go in the high five figures I think the record was $105,000 for a single straw.
We're in a specialty market so we try to drop 2 calves a month.
Our goal is to process 2 a month which makes for a pain in the butt calving year-round, but it allows us more even dispersal for our customers.

 

[Dave]

We have cows that are up to 1,500 lb. I think our smallest is 1100 and she is still a heifer.
Those cows get fed developer mix everyday in small amounts, high fat tub and high mag mineral.
Most of the size comes through years of genetic modification using AI because we can't afford those expensive bulls. I believe our best hanging weight was 885 for the 7/8 Wagyu x Angus F4 steers. Try not to get them too fat...they don't need it.
Although in The last 5 years cost of high-end Wagyu semen has got ridiculous. It's not unusual to see the high end Wagyu semen go in the high five figures I think the record was $105,000 for a single straw.
We're in a specialty market so we try to drop 2 calves a month.
Our goal is to process 2 a month which makes for a pain in the butt calving year-round, but it allows us more even dispersal for our customers.

Two completely different worlds. These cows get grass mid April through November. December through mid April they get grass hay. There might be a little Alfalfa hay in the winter ration. They certainly don't finish any of them. These just isn't much of a market here for finished beef and especially high dollar kind. All of the calves get sold as breeding stock. I would seriously doubt that he buys semen in anywhere near those figures. This is a commercial ranch and managed as such. Along with his couple hundred Wagyu there is over 1,000 beef cows.

 

[Little Joe]

For 25 years, my partner and I have kept 100-120 Corriente cows, We use reg Angus and Brangus bulls....some Ultrablacks a year or two.... and get 100-120- black polled calves each year.

This was not my experience although mine were more of a longhorn type cow. Bought them bred to black baldy bull, 4 calfs, 2 black baldy,1 rwf, one spotted up, all had scurs. Next year bred to ultra black, 1 black and white line backed, 1 spotted, 1 speckled,1 black, all had scurs. None of it mattered to me because I was just finishing them to sell beef and they finished good, average age at finish was 20 months, around 625 hot carcass, on mostly just grass until last 60 days.

 

[GoWyo]

My recollection is scurred cattle are also polled?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

My recollection is scurred cattle are also polled?

That is correct. In regular breeds, the scur gene is a sex linked gene. Males will HAVE scurrs if they inherit 1 gene from either parent. Heifers have to inherit TWO genes (1 from each parent) for scurs to grow.