Whats a low birthweight breed?

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Rafter S":3k89wrvc said:
branguscowgirl":3k89wrvc said:
Branguscowgirl, 750# is just about perfect for a 14 month old commercial heifer. I've seen registered guys push them to 1000#, then have trouble breeding them. I wonder why???
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I guess that I don't see many "commercial" Brangus. Mine are grass fed with grass hay in the winter. (Defiantly not "pushed".) My donor cow weaned her heifer at 748# this year. I realize that they won't all be that big, just seems light to me. But again, I am not a "commercial" breeder.
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None of my Brangus cows are registered, so I guess that makes them commercial. And most of my heifer calves will weigh over 600 at 8 months old, on grass and milk. I creep feed a little, but it's very little. Just enough so when I wean them they know what feed is.
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:nod: :nod:
 
Not 100% sure on age. Her weight is an estimate. This is a picture of her with my hereford bull. I bought her from a cattle broker. She is about 5 foot tall at the hips. What do you think. Taking her to the vet this morning to get checked if she got bred by this bull but I have not seen him mount her since they have been together https://instagram.com/p/3RBcDcHYcC/
 
You can assess all you need to know from that picture. She has adequate cover for her frame size which should suggest she's in optimum condition for her genetics. Throwing out an arbitrary weight or age is of no use without knowing the genetic potential of the animal. Those that commented prior to seeing the picture had to make some pretty big assumptions. 750 lb is huge for a 14 month old heifer if we're talking about cows that mature at 1000lbs. IF talking about cows that end up 12-1400lbs, then 750lbs is prolly average. For those with tonner donor cows, I'm sure a 750lb 14 month old heifer would seem small. With Brangus cattle coming in all types and sizes, it's imperative to know what 'type' we're commenting on. Or we could just stick to generalities and it might apply or it might not.

Yes, Registered cattle should have superior genetics relative to commercial cattle but seldom to never are their genetics superior 'enough' to compensate and outperform their crossbred counterparts who have expressed heterosis on their side.
 
If I was looking for a bull to breed a bunch of heifers to I would use N BAR PRIME TIME D806...
http://abs-bs.absglobal.com/beef/angus. ... o=29AN1520

He's a proven calving ease bull. I've used him and not only do the calves have a light weight and calving ease build but they have a lot of vigor.. Within minutes they are up and sucking... And the heifers sired by him make pretty fair mama cows....
 
The first Brangus bull you posted above had a BW Epd of -5.8. There is a table put out by MARC that you can use to compare numbers of different breeds. To compare birth weight of a Brangus to a straight Angus you need to add 4.4 to the given Epd, so that Brangus bull would be comparable to a Angus with a Birth weight Epd of -1.4. The semen on him is quite expensive in my opinion. Breeding AI only results in pregnancy 50 to 70% of the time, so when you add semen that you may need to use twice or more, plus all of the other related AI expenses it will really add up. There are lots of Angus bulls with even lower birth weight and higher calving ease that can be purchased for under $20 per straw. The second bull has no numbers at all. Just because he weighed 67 pounds, doesn't mean his calves will be small and I would not even trust that birth weight to be accurate. Actually, since his name is Pud, I suspect he was posted as a joke. Am I correct?

Here is a link to the across breeds Epd table. This one is posted on the American Angus site, but you can find the same table in other locations. One of the biggest differences is between Angus and Brahman. You need to add 11 to the calving ease Epd of a Brahman to make it comparable to Angus.
http://www.angus.org/nce/acrossbreedepdadjfactors.aspx

I would be very hesitant to use a lowline Angus if you plan to sell the calf as a stocker or feeder. You will most likely be docked in price. Those buyers want calves with grow, and lowlines would be the opposite of growthy cattle. No matter what bull you use the birth weight will be influenced more than 50% by the cow and the environmental conditions. Just because someone else had 60 pound calves does not guarantee you will. I expect your heifer will have no problems with an 80 pound calf. In 9 months, at only 1 pound per day, she will grow another 300 pounds. If she is really 5 foot tall as a yearling, that is huge. If that is true, I would guess she is much heavier than 750. Unless she has an unusually small pelvic area, I think you are worrying too much. I calve out 40 to 50 Angus cows per year and I have not pulled one out of a heifer in almost 10 years.
 
Katpau":3hsqvfiq said:
The first Brangus bull you posted above had a BW Epd of -5.8. There is a table put out by MARC that you can use to compare numbers of different breeds. To compare birth weight of a Brangus to a straight Angus you need to add 4.4 to the given Epd, so that Brangus bull would be comparable to a Angus with a Birth weight Epd of -1.4. The semen on him is quite expensive in my opinion. Breeding AI only results in pregnancy 50 to 70% of the time, so when you add semen that you may need to use twice or more, plus all of the other related AI expenses it will really add up. There are lots of Angus bulls with even lower birth weight and higher calving ease that can be purchased for under $20 per straw. The second bull has no numbers at all. Just because he weighed 67 pounds, doesn't mean his calves will be small and I would not even trust that birth weight to be accurate. Actually, since his name is Pud, I suspect he was posted as a joke. Am I correct?

Here is a link to the across breeds Epd table. This one is posted on the American Angus site, but you can find the same table in other locations. One of the biggest differences is between Angus and Brahman. You need to add 11 to the calving ease Epd of a Brahman to make it comparable to Angus.
http://www.angus.org/nce/acrossbreedepdadjfactors.aspx

I would be very hesitant to use a lowline Angus if you plan to sell the calf as a stocker or feeder. You will most likely be docked in price. Those buyers want calves with grow, and lowlines would be the opposite of growthy cattle. No matter what bull you use the birth weight will be influenced more than 50% by the cow and the environmental conditions. Just because someone else had 60 pound calves does not guarantee you will. I expect your heifer will have no problems with an 80 pound calf. In 9 months, at only 1 pound per day, she will grow another 300 pounds. If she is really 5 foot tall as a yearling, that is huge. If that is true, I would guess she is much heavier than 750. Unless she has an unusually small pelvic area, I think you are worrying too much. I calve out 40 to 50 Angus cows per year and I have not pulled one out of a heifer in almost 10 years.
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This makes a lot of sense. No wonder when I looked at the angus I didnt see too many negative numbers on the birthweight. This helps a lot.
 
I breed my brangus heifers to brangus bulls . My cows are all out of low birth weight brangus bulls and my calves have been under 75 lbs for the past 5 years. Most are in the 60 lb range on the cows and 45 to 60 on the heifers. Half of the genes come from the cow . So low bw bull is only part of it
 
You can pretty much get a Low birth weight or calving ease bull with any breed. Our Charolais bull that we have on our beef cows are throwing some low birth weight calves. Around 60-75 pounds and our beef cows are doing a really good job with them. We do have an oops heifer about 16 months old that is going to have a calf in about a month or so...so we will see how she handles it. The other two Charolais bulls are on all Longhorn/Corriente cow herds so they kinda water down the birth weight of the bulls but they are having about 50-65 pound calves which is still pretty good. We had one that was pretty big...about 80-85 pounds that a Longhorn heifer had and she had it easy.

But you can always get a good Black Angus and sleep well with your heifers calving in my opinion. I'm not a Black Angus fan anymore but they do throw small calves and makes it easy on the heifers.

I feel like Calving ease can be more important then birth weight...what do y'all think? It could have already been mentioned and I could have missed it reading through everything.
 
If the vet says that "she is ready to go" I would breed her to a calving ease Brangus bull and be done with it. If she has a heifer calf, you should have a good replacement heifer for you or someone else. :2cents:
 
Thanks everyone for your input. I have learned a lot. Went with a low birthweight angus. Ordered it yesterday. A brangus/angus cross is a calf I would keep. They charged me $70 in shipping!!!!! Not cheap at all!!!!!
 
BK9954":2w1pawka said:
Thanks everyone for your input. I have learned a lot. Went with a low birthweight angus. Ordered it yesterday. A brangus/angus cross is a calf I would keep. They charged me $70 in shipping!!!!! Not cheap at all!!!!!
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$70!!!!! Holy cow someone is pretty proud of there services. I get as good a calving ease Angus bull as there is delivered t my door by the Select Sires rep for $18 a straw. In the future you need to research a little on which AI company has a rep going through your area.
 
Shipping costs are hard on me around here also! I think that my last shipment was $150. from Genetrust. (They use a private company to ship, that is separate from them.)
I think that I need to do some research and see how I can get that cost down.
 
Sounds about right.
When I can get semen on a bull I want from the local ABS, Select Sires, Accelerated Genetics, or Genex reps, there's no 'shipping' cost... but if I'm ordering from an outfit like Cattle Visions, Universal, Bovine Elite, etc... I'm figuring on having to pay 60 bucks or more - and I'm usually gonna order enough to get the cost/unit down to a buck or two. Order 30,40,50 units, and the hit isn't that bad. If you're just getting 5 units, then, yeah, it seems like a lot. Some them offer reduced or free shipping, if you order 50, 100, or more units.
If you look at the cost of a new vapor shipper and shipping container, N2 to charge it - and the cost to ship one, round-trip, by UPS or FedEx... $60-$70 really is fairly reasonable.
 

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