What breed of bull to use?

[Nesikep]

If you want to keep the frame size down, I'd go Gelbvieh, otherwise (perhaps for terminal cross?) Limo.. Simm would work well too.

Does color matter at all to you? What do your sale barns like?

 

[John SD]

New modern sims aren't the big framed, calving trouble cows of a couple decades ago.

Angus is the one who's frames have been creeping up.

:nod: Herefords too.

I must say my limited personal experience with Charolais was positive. I only used the bull one season, but had no birth weight problems whatsoever. IIRC, the Char bull I had was around 95 lbs birthweight. I've used both Angus and Hereford with similar. 20 years ago I would not have used a bull over 90 lbs, but it is harder to find one under 90 nowdays.

 

[cotton1]

Sounds like you should use a F1 black baldy bull. Maybe if you know the blood lines of Angus and Hereford that are working well for you , a similarily bred bull to your cows would keep your replacements consistent to what you have and like. And I just wanted to point out that Charolais would work for you if you selected for calving ease. The Charolais breed does have EPDs, Geo-EPDs, and individual performance data available. Using those with phenotype is a good idea if your buying a registered bull. The absence of the EPDs might be the only problem to using the F1 Baldy. You would have to know the matings that produced said bull. Birth Weight is not the tell all in calving ease either. I had a woman breeder tell me that her own experience with having children,and breeding cattle tought her that. She says a mama cow can spit out a 90lb calf thats long and slender much easier than a calf that is a "70lb bowling ball". All that said, lots of folks selected bulls for a long time without modern day EPDs, only using phenotype and in herd data to help make selections. You can find a F1 Baldy bull with easy calving genetics most likely. I think there is a registery on the baldy cows now, but am not sure. Using this type bull would keep you from having the Heinz 57 you were talking about. Whatever you choose, good luck.

 

[Dale L]

]

Thanks for all the great input, with simmy's, which is/was one of my thoughts I'm a little concerned with frame creep and Calving ease. My thoughts was Gelvbieh or Murry Grey, any knocks on Murry Greys? Keep in mind that I realize in some years I will end up with a herd of Heinz 57, but at my age I want to keep with easy calving, decent growth and moderate frame.

Thanks again for the food for thought,

Alan

I would not let frame size scare me away from Simmental. A lot of the Simms are just as moderate if not more than some of the angus. It may just be me but most of the gelbvieh I see are probably more framey than the Simmental. I don't know much about the Murrey Greys other than what I see on here. But Backbone has some nice looking moderate framed cattle that sound like they wean just as heavy calves as some of the animals that have more frame.

 

[elkwc]

I'm looking at the same situation you are. Here in this region there are a few options that seem to be the best. Either go with a good Angus bull either black or Red. Red Angus are selling with the blacks here and so are black baldies. Red Angus and Black baldie replacement heifers and cows are topping the market. I've seen a few good polled Herefords but overall I agree with a previous post that if using Herefords go horned. They will carry more muscling. With all that being said I did help select a balancer bull to try last Jan. His first calves will be arriving in a month. So too early to judge. Will see how he continues to develop and also what his calves do. I'm like several I've seen too many problems in the past with Simmis and Charolais for me to feel to comfortable using or recommending either. I look at the Charolais cross as more of a terminal cross and not a replacement type deal. I've seen a few black Simmis I liked but feel you had better do your homework when selecting one. I've heard of instances of breeders having to pull a few calves from grown cows. Again bloodlines I would say is very critical. But unless the Balancer cross really impresses us we will continue to use an angus (either red or black) or Hereford cross. It produces the overall best product we can raise that meets our criteria at least to this point.

 

[bigbull338]

i was thinking go back with the best hereford bull you can buy.

 

[Big Cheese]

Even though you said no to this breed already my first choice would be Charolais. We have only had to pull two calfves since we got out 3 Charolais Bulls (knock on wood) but it was on the mommas fault not the calves the calves weren't very big around 70 pounds. YWF calves sell for top dollar around here so I wouldn't count them out completely until you know for sure what you want. But since you don't want Charolais I would just stick with a Black Angus or Hereford and keep the Black Baldies coming because they bring top dollar as well. Sounds like you've got a great herd of cows to really make some money with.

 

[mrvictordomino]

i was thinking go back with the best hereford bull you can buy.

bigbull, they just need to make sure that Hereford has horns :cowboy:

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

i was thinking go back with the best hereford bull you can buy.

bigbull, they just need to make sure that Hereford has horns :cowboy:

Blasphemy!

 

[mrvictordomino]

i was thinking go back with the best hereford bull you can buy.

bigbull, they just need to make sure that Hereford has horns :cowboy:

Blasphemy!

:cboy: :nod:

 

[JWBrahman]

i was thinking go back with the best hereford bull you can buy.

bigbull, they just need to make sure that Hereford has horns :cowboy:

:lol: :roll:
High five!
Good to see some humor on here, again.
Just have to spoil the discussion with a solid fact that the calves from our Polled Hereford outperformed the calves from 3 horned Charolais bulls. Probably the best return on investment we have ever pulled off in Agriculture.

 

[JHH]

Alan we have an older gentleman here who raises black baldies they top our market. The ones he keeps he breeds back to an angus Not sure if he keeps any of those calves.

 

[Alan]

Thanks for all the great suggestions and much food for thought. Since we seems to have folks here wanting to buy some of our farm raised beef that will be our primary end market, at least until I deal with one too many idiots. But as I stated mostly I'm in the rebuilding stage but starting this time with much better quality cattle. Some will no doubt end up on the trailer to the sale yard. As far as my herd goes I want to stay with moderate framed cattle that calve easy and have good growth that taste great....... And good for you too! :lol:

Crossing with Angus (red or black), Hereford (polled or horned :mrgreen: ), Gelvbieh or Murry Greys seem to be the way I'm leaning. Although I think I'll go Angus or Hereford next spring depending on how many heifer calves I get in March, last March we got all bull calves. doesn't help the herd building part but puts money in the bank. I have Chars in the back of my mind but it would really need to be the right one.

Thanks again for all the input.

Alan

 

[Supa Dexta]

Take a dice and assign a breed to each number, give it a toss and stick to the result

 

[cow pollinater]

If you're open to chars try big ben at abs. Moderate and calving ease. If you can find any semen rio bravo is a must use. I had a bunch of daughters of his and I'm still kicking myself for selling them. With the hereford in the mix you can beat what a char will do for you with either the right lim or gelbvieh bull due to heterosis but not so much on the sim.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Thanks for all the great suggestions and much food for thought. Since we seems to have folks here wanting to buy some of our farm raised beef that will be our primary end market, at least until I deal with one too many idiots. But as I stated mostly I'm in the rebuilding stage but starting this time with much better quality cattle. Some will no doubt end up on the trailer to the sale yard. As far as my herd goes I want to stay with moderate framed cattle that calve easy and have good growth that taste great....... And good for you too! :lol:

Crossing with Angus (red or black), Hereford (polled or horned :mrgreen: ), Gelvbieh or Murry Greys seem to be the way I'm leaning. Although I think I'll go Angus or Hereford next spring depending on how many heifer calves I get in March, last March we got all bull calves. doesn't help the herd building part but puts money in the bank. I have Chars in the back of my mind but it would really need to be the right one.

Thanks again for all the input.

Alan

If you're selling beef off the farm, I'd make every conceivable effort to bring the bull(s) on board who make the best tasting, healthiest product you can. There are DNA tests you can require on the bulls. There is substantial amount of literature out there on different genes that are positively correlated with positive dining experiences.

These things are VERY different from what are commonly known as 'carcass traits'. To wit, one of our heifers went through the butcher -- he thought she was too lean and wanted us to burger her entire carcass -- we said no, and please butcher her like we said -- he did -- we entered the ribeyes in the American Royal's Great Steaks competition (or at least that's what I think it's called) -- it's an actual taste test where steaks are graded based on flavor, tenderness, juiciness, etc. -- and we won a big 'ol blue ribbon for our ribeyes -- and the butcher wanted to burger her entire carcass because it LOOKED too lean.

Study up on the different things that impact tenderness and juiciness of the beef. You'll need to learn something about the different muscle fiber types, leptin, calpain, calpastatin, insulin growth factor, pro-melanin-concentrating hormone, corticotrophin releasing hormone, etc.

So, whatever breed(s) you go with, if you can sell the best tasting beef (regardless of color or size of animal), you'll be able to earn premiums that far exceed anything you'd ever get at the sale barn for having the right colored animals.

Good luck and LMK if you have any questions. Even if you don't pick either of my breeds, I'm happy to be a sounding board.

 

[wacocowboy]

As I have mentioned a few times I'm in the herd rebuilding stage and have a few good Black Baldy heifers a long with some Polled Herefords. I'm starting to think about a different breed of bull to use next season or the season after. What breed of bull would you use on, what I consider, a true Black Baldy cow (straight Herf x with Black Angus). A little information for you, my cows are all pretty uniform, moderate framed cattle I want to stay in that area, moderate framed and easy to average calving breed with decent growth for my moderate framed cows..... No Belgium Blues :lol: , in fact Charolais would be a hard sell for me. Also up here I see very few eared cattle, i don't know if they don't do well or just take too big of a hit, none the less eared are not an option for me.

Thanks just starting to get my wheels turning in this direction.

Alan

I wouldn't knock eared cattle up there. At a registered bull sale in OK there is someone buying a bunch of Beefmaster bulls to take to Oregon.

 

[machslammer]

I currently have a Char bull breeding to baldies and black hided cows. He is calve easing bull in the Char breed and throws 70-80# Heifers and 90-105# Bulls. They grow off really nice as well. I usually just sell at the stock barns.. My problem is I can only run about 15 momma cows and the bull at my current "hobby" farm. I would like to start just marketing heifers and then sale the steers at barn or what not.. What would you do? Have all black/BWF cows already.. What would you use as a bull for heifers? Attempt at selling the Char cross outta him now, or go buy a horned/polled Hereford for Baldy Heifers? The Char is calving ease, but with keeping in the English breed of baldies if I go that route, should I get a balanced/terminal bull for weight growth? Had a polled calving ease prior and had such small calves that grew just ok and the muscling was poor.. Thanks.