whats a good breed to start with

[aplusmnt]

Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed. DOC HARRIS, all I can say is GET OVER IT. I find it extremely unfair that you would jump down my throat like that WITH NO GOOD REASON

Wh-e-w-w-w-w! I guess you told me!

DOC HARRIS

I'm guessing it's about time someone did.

no actually DOC'S right. you don't blurt out a breed for someone to use like you got terets syndrone ;-)

 

[Kent]

Jack Ward wrote a timely article last year in which he said that the cancer eye etc problems were a result of a lack of using the knife when demand for Herefords was at high levels. Now, of the top 20 most used sires in the breed, less than 1% are culled with eye problems if I recall correctly. There are more culled due to old age than any of the problems that critics love to drag up.

He was right, and I know a breeder of another breed right down the road from me who sells every bull born to his cows as a breeding bull. He doesn't cut even one of them. He feeds the sorry ones more to try to make them all look the same. Whatever problems his cows have, they have all been passed on to someone, somewhere, many times over. Some of these old farmers come in just wanting anything cheap and black, because black calves "bring more", but they don't want to pay much for a bull to "freshen their cows", and this guy delivers what they want.

That's precisely what some unscrupulous Hereford breeders did when they couldn't raise enough bulls to sell 3 or 4 decades ago, and look what it did to the breed. But what can you do about it? The breeder owns the bulls and has a right to sell them if he wants, and some people (buyers and sellers) just can't be taught. You can talk to them till you're blue in the face about how their sorry bulls are hurting the breed, and they don't care. They'll just switch to whatever breed overtakes the one they've got now.

It hasn't been easy for me to hang on to Herefords. I just about sold them all in '96 when I took a load of straightbred 450 lb bull calves to the sale and got 38 cents a lb for them. Yes, you read that right. Somebody made quite a profit after feeding those calves, because they were good. I would have sold out, but nobody around here would buy a Hereford cow. I watched everyone around me go so blindly toward the black fad that they bought some of the worst looking bulls I have ever seen just to get black calves. It was crazy. Now, ten years later, both neighbors who literally laughed at me for sticking with Herefords have Hereford bulls on their cows. They were, however, too unable to admit their mistakes to come to me to buy those bulls.

I sincerely hope what happened to Herefords doesn't happen to the Angus folks. As many Angus as there are now, there used to be even more Herefords, so don't say it can't happen. Use that knife, boys, when it needs usin'. :cboy:

 

[S.R.R.]

superx this might suite you to a tee! You will get your Herefords and your heat tolerance.

http://news.ifas.ufl.edu/archstory.php?id=0482

 

[DOC HARRIS]

(From KENT - ABOVE)
I sincerely hope what happened to Herefords doesn't happen to the Angus folks. As many Angus as there are now, there used to be even more Herefords, so don't say it can't happen. Use that knife, boys, when it needs usin'.

Kent- You are SO-O-O-O-O correct in your perception of what happened to the Hereford breed in the 40's, 50's and 60's - and if you have been reading my threads on this very same situation regarding the Angus breed during the same time period, you know how much I deplore those human characteristics - GREED and SELFISHNESS - and we might just as well call a spade a spade - for that is just what caused the BEEF problems then. And I have dreaded seeing what is happening to the Angus Breed for the same reasons - it is de'ja vu - ALL over again!! The phenotypic and genotypic characteristics and traits are somewhat different this time, but the results are repeating themselves.

Your question regarding "what can we do about it??" is a conundrum - as you said we can talk to "them" until we are blue in the face and it goes in one ear and out the other - possibly because of immediacy - we want results - last WEEK - without expending the effort required to achieve them! I feel that the answer to the problem is what I have been attempting to do for as long as I have been on these Boards - harp, harp, harp, nag, nag, nag on READING, LEARNING and THINKING- - and to achieve 100% results in those efforts is like anything else - impossible. But NOT ONE SINGLE result is ever achieved without EDUCATION. And as long as I am capable of speaking out - I will continue to try to bring a little "light "to the Beef Industry.

Praise GOD for people like you who are capable of using their heads for something other than a hat rack!

DON'T GET ME STARTED!

DOC HARRIS

 

[Kent]

Wow, thanks Doc. You made me blush. :lol:

And I meant what I said about not wanting that to happen to Angus. They are good cattle when they are good, and bad when they are bad, same as any other breed. But they and the Herefords have such wonderful characteristics LOCKED IN their genetic codes that we simply HAVE to use them when we can. On top of that, the cross of the two beats either purebred animal when top genetics are used.

Greed can be an ugly thing, and there were a lot of breeders who ran down Herefords when their stock wasn't half as good as the Hereford breeder down the road from them. They did it when they hadn't ever owned a problem Hereford too, just to sell more of their own bulls. A lot of the stuff was just flat made up. Where I come from, that's called LYING, and it's not OK to do it, even for money.

 

[CowCop]

I would go with Herfs. A new cowherd probably does not need to start with Brafords or any eared cattle. Herefords have been in Florida for 90 years so I don't think the heat is a huge issue and you can always breed your Hereford mamas to a Braford, Brangus, or Gert bull if you want to add some ear later.

We had a herd of Herefords in Notheast Florida some 40 years ago. The flys and resulting pinkeye/cancereye was a nightmare Would certainly not recommend Hereford for that area.

Norris

I agree 110%

I worked with Herefords and Simmentals in
Florida--Gainesville & Bronson-- and the sun and flys adversly affected eyes, udders, scrotums and anything that was white.

If you must, get Herefords with pigment around eyes, udders and scrotums so you and the cattle will fare better.

Brafords and Simbrah did the best in that kind of environment.
Cattle with pigment around eyes--such as Googled eyed Simmentals and Herefords suffered less with the flys.

I did research for UF and the intense heat really affects embrios in cattle. Resulting in calf loss mortality.
Pick cattle that can handle the heat & humidity, and the stress that comes with it, or you will have a high calf mortality rate and a loss of big $$.