Which CE Angus bull?

[Air gator]

NEFarmwife,
How does he compare to Acclaim? Didn't you flush to Acclaim?

 

[NEFarmwife]

NEFarmwife,
How does he compare to Acclaim? Didn't you flush to Acclaim?

We did. We flushed to him with our donor. (6 live transfers) We also flushed Epic but with a different donor. We have 4 of those live transfers in our recips.

I feel Epic is an "all around" bull that should meet anyone's needs, honestly. Number wise. Having just recently seeing such a large group of calves from him, it makes me extremely excited to see our future calves. We flushed and did AI.

Acclaim makes good looking bulls, have not seen any as calves. Opposite could be said about Epic. I've only seen calves.

Purely on numbers, I'd do Epic over and over again. He's safe, proven. And a very nice set of numbers. Feed efficiency is high for some but I think his other numbers counter balance it.

Shooting for the moon on our donor... had to do Acclaim. He's hot right now.
We were able to sell our other 7 embryos for a decent price and have a list of buyers for our next flush.

 

[Air gator]

NEFarmWife,
Were the Epic calves at Express or somewhere else?
I know Express did really well with his calves at Denver but I hadn't heard much about him.

 

[torogmc81]

NEFarmwife,
How does he compare to Acclaim? Didn't you flush to Acclaim?

We did. We flushed to him with our donor. (6 live transfers) We also flushed Epic but with a different donor. We have 4 of those live transfers in our recips.

I feel Epic is an "all around" bull that should meet anyone's needs, honestly. Number wise. Having just recently seeing such a large group of calves from him, it makes me extremely excited to see our future calves. We flushed and did AI.

Acclaim makes good looking bulls, have not seen any as calves. Opposite could be said about Epic. I've only seen calves.

Purely on numbers, I'd do Epic over and over again. He's safe, proven. And a very nice set of numbers. Feed efficiency is high for some but I think his other numbers counter balance it.

Shooting for the moon on our donor... had to do Acclaim. He's hot right now.
We were able to sell our other 7 embryos for a decent price and have a list of buyers for our next flush.

Do you have Epic semen in inventory? $45 is tough for me. Any thoughts on wherther his price will come back down??

 

[NEFarmwife]

NEFarmWife,
Were the Epic calves at Express or somewhere else?
I know Express did really well with his calves at Denver but I hadn't heard much about him.

The gentleman we purchased our donor from in SD, had told us when he brought her down, that he had used Epic the past AI season. When we visited SD, we weren't far from his place so we spent an afternoon looking at his cows/calves. He had several sires he AI'd with and you could pick those Epics out. Although everything looked really good and he has a great program, those Epics (IMO) were a stand out from the rest.

 

[NEFarmwife]

NEFarmwife,
How does he compare to Acclaim? Didn't you flush to Acclaim?

We did. We flushed to him with our donor. (6 live transfers) We also flushed Epic but with a different donor. We have 4 of those live transfers in our recips.

I feel Epic is an "all around" bull that should meet anyone's needs, honestly. Number wise. Having just recently seeing such a large group of calves from him, it makes me extremely excited to see our future calves. We flushed and did AI.

Acclaim makes good looking bulls, have not seen any as calves. Opposite could be said about Epic. I've only seen calves.

Purely on numbers, I'd do Epic over and over again. He's safe, proven. And a very nice set of numbers. Feed efficiency is high for some but I think his other numbers counter balance it.

Shooting for the moon on our donor... had to do Acclaim. He's hot right now.
We were able to sell our other 7 embryos for a decent price and have a list of buyers for our next flush.

Do you have Epic semen in inventory? $45 is tough for me. Any thoughts on wherther his price will come back down??

We do not. When we ordered, our semen guy told us when he delivered them, that price had literally went up just after we had ordered. We held a few back for our flushes. I think he's had a couple increases because we bought at $30, then they hopped to $40. Now $45? Wish we'd have bought more.

I could reach out to semen guy on thoughts about price. He's such a knowledgeable man. He may even know someone who'd be willing to part with some?

 

[hornedfrogbbq]

NEFarmwife,
How does he compare to Acclaim? Didn't you flush to Acclaim?

We did. We flushed to him with our donor. (6 live transfers) We also flushed Epic but with a different donor. We have 4 of those live transfers in our recips.

I feel Epic is an "all around" bull that should meet anyone's needs, honestly. Number wise. Having just recently seeing such a large group of calves from him, it makes me extremely excited to see our future calves. We flushed and did AI.

Acclaim makes good looking bulls, have not seen any as calves. Opposite could be said about Epic. I've only seen calves.

Purely on numbers, I'd do Epic over and over again. He's safe, proven. And a very nice set of numbers. Feed efficiency is high for some but I think his other numbers counter balance it.

Shooting for the moon on our donor... had to do Acclaim. He's hot right now.
We were able to sell our other 7 embryos for a decent price and have a list of buyers for our next flush.

Has anyone had any experience with females out of Epic? i just called his dam's owner to ask how she is and how she looks. I had heard a rumor of prolapse from our semen rep and want to confirm or deny. Anyone?

 

[NEFarmwife]

I've read that on here but I've not heard personally.

 

[torogmc81]

We did. We flushed to him with our donor. (6 live transfers) We also flushed Epic but with a different donor. We have 4 of those live transfers in our recips.

I feel Epic is an "all around" bull that should meet anyone's needs, honestly. Number wise. Having just recently seeing such a large group of calves from him, it makes me extremely excited to see our future calves. We flushed and did AI.

Acclaim makes good looking bulls, have not seen any as calves. Opposite could be said about Epic. I've only seen calves.

Purely on numbers, I'd do Epic over and over again. He's safe, proven. And a very nice set of numbers. Feed efficiency is high for some but I think his other numbers counter balance it.

Shooting for the moon on our donor... had to do Acclaim. He's hot right now.
We were able to sell our other 7 embryos for a decent price and have a list of buyers for our next flush.

Do you have Epic semen in inventory? $45 is tough for me. Any thoughts on wherther his price will come back down??

We do not. When we ordered, our semen guy told us when he delivered them, that price had literally went up just after we had ordered. We held a few back for our flushes. I think he's had a couple increases because we bought at $30, then they hopped to $40. Now $45? Wish we'd have bought more.

I could reach out to semen guy on thoughts about price. He's such a knowledgeable man. He may even know someone who'd be willing to part with some?

Probably since they needed to lower Cowboy UP to $30, Epic took his place on Express list on the "over 40" club :nod:

 

[hornedfrogbbq]

Cowboy Up? At a single digit milk? I get what he does but if you keep ANY heifer calves how does that work?

It seems like the perfect bull if you chased milk in the south and your breed-back rate isn't good.

A whole lot of registered folks down here chased $B and huge growth when the environment could not handle it. I am sure every Koch and cargill and national beef rep is pushing HQ.

What percentage of producers gain from better $B? What percentage benefit from grading?

Who the cuss is running this?

I have my guesses...

 

[NEFarmwife]

Cowboy Up? At a single digit milk? I get what he does but if you keep ANY heifer calves how does that work?

It seems like the perfect bull if you chased milk in the south and your breed-back rate isn't good.

A whole lot of registered folks down here chased $B and huge growth when the environment could not handle it. I am sure every Koch and cargill and national beef rep is pushing HQ.

What percentage of producers gain from better $B? What percentage benefit from grading?

Who the cuss is running this?

I have my guesses...

We saw some Cowboy Up also and I liked him as a calf but not as much as Epic. I've read or have been private messaged on here that CU was hot headed but from the experience of the gentleman we visited, he said that was one of the more docile he's dealt with.

As far as dollars of beef, I was talking with another couple who are reputable in the cattle industry about my donor who is almost $187 in beef. He said to me, "everyone is chasing $b" and sounded extremely disappointed. His donors are not. We're talking a vast extreme. I trust him because he's bigger and better than we'll ever be... but I'll ride that bandwagon. We have enough to play with that we can experiment a little and not break the bank. It's not anything we'd put on our livelihood so to speak. Our money IS in dollars of beef but if we plan to make money breeding for that, it's only in our terminal. That's why we chose Epic and Blackstone (black Magic's son)

 

[hornedfrogbbq]

I think that is great. You should feed all your cattle out and get paid on the huge $B.

Yet, I find no one does.

If you get paid on a grid, show that information. We saw some great feedlot information at the sygen sale. True numbers of a guy putting his business on the line and retaining ownership.

We keep asking seed producers to show us carcass info. If you promote $B, you should own through the cycle to get paid on carcass...since that is the whole point.

So how is your grade out and yield?

I don't want to sound sour. Please pardon me if I do. I am just ready to see the seed producers back up $B. Sell on a grid. Own it. But I absolutely get why the wholesaler and retailer want us to believe and chase $B...because the VAST majority of the time the feedlot or the wholesaler makes the money and the first owner is shut down.

I get it is a commodity business...but derisk my business in cow calf and I will share risk through the grid.

 

[torogmc81]

Cowboy Up? At a single digit milk? I get what he does but if you keep ANY heifer calves how does that work?

It seems like the perfect bull if you chased milk in the south and your breed-back rate isn't good.

A whole lot of registered folks down here chased $B and huge growth when the environment could not handle it. I am sure every Koch and cargill and national beef rep is pushing HQ.

What percentage of producers gain from better $B? What percentage benefit from grading?

Who the cuss is running this?

I have my guesses...

Only a comment on some price changes, my comment in no way is suggesting the use of Cowboy Up

I completely agree with you on $B. It's getting out of hand imo, as the we currently in the "black magic race" era of the angus breed ....

 

[jscunn]

I look at EPD trends for young highly promoted bulls more than anything. It was easier to spot trouble before genomics, if a bull like Cowboy Up trended down to single digits for milk and really low for marbling it told a story one of dry daughters and lots of poor ultrasound data. Now I don't know if it is that or bad DNA profiles. Don't currently trust DNA more than performance data.

As far as chasing $B, the $B formula is pretty solid right now, pounds pays the bills and QG is the cream. Lots of guys are getting paid on $B because the formula is right, don't think they are using it like you think but CW is paying the bills. Much better than the other formula.

Seedstock producers should kill their own animals, everyone has cull bulls (or certainly should). I know some a catalog were some seedstock producer bull calf culls were ~40% Prime with acceptable CW and gain. That is what everyone should strive for with cull bulls.

 

[LCBulls]

We used Cowboy Up pretty heavily and have been quite happy with what he has produced so far. I wouldn't put to much stock in his +8 Milk EPD when there have not been any actual data from the daughters turned in to date.
His milk EPD is obviously all based on his HD-50K test because his Parents both had much higher Milk EPD's.
As to which CE bull to use;
We really like our Tex Playbook 5437 calves. He's not a crazy low birthweight bull, but his calves have excellent shape and thickness.
We are still not too impressed with the Acclaim calves so far. To me they have to much leg and are built more like a deer. I hope they come on like his numbers would suggest.
We also really like the LD Capitalist 316 calves.

 

[NEFarmwife]

We are still not too impressed with the Acclaim calves so far. To me they have to much leg and are built more like a deer. I hope they come on like his numbers would suggest.

Really hope to hear more feedback once they've grown more. How old are they currently? Do you have pictures?

Mind you, I have only seen Acclaim during bull sales. So they aren't going to throw anything out there that they're not impressed with but everything I have seen, I have liked.

 

[LCBulls]

They are only about 5 months old. And to be honest the sample size is not that big. I was just surprised that they were so much finer boned. The one thing that people will really like is that he is definitely a CE heifer bull.
I really like some of his sons (Stevenson Big League, Statement, Declaration, Jindra Stonewall) that I've seen pictures of at different AI studs. That's why I'm kind of surprised that the ones we had were so much different.

 

[hornedfrogbbq]

They are only about 5 months old. And to be honest the sample size is not that big. I was just surprised that they were so much finer boned. The one thing that people will really like is that he is definitely a CE heifer bull.
I really like some of his sons (Stevenson Big League, Statement, Declaration, Jindra Stonewall) that I've seen pictures of at different AI studs. That's why I'm kind of surprised that the ones we had were so much different.

Could be the difference in the cows. We have seen a HUGE difference between big herds down here (that shall go unnamed but have big bull sales where they sell 75-400 bulls) and the herds in MO, MT, ND and NE. Same sires...totally different offspring.

It's all about the cow...

 

[LCBulls]

It could be, but the other sires were consistently better. He did have some stiff competition with Playbook,and LD 316 on the heifers.
One thing I know for certain, is how important the Cow raising them is. That's why we have been using Embryo Transfer so heavily. I'll have to check the cows that we're raising them.

 

[hornedfrogbbq]

oh sure...i didn't mean to say different bulls don't have huge differences. I am just saying the same sire can have VASTLY different looking calves based on the momma's genetics and, as you point out, how she raises them.