Which CE Angus bull?

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Air gator

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Which calving ease Angus bull would add the most value to the calf (regardless of the gender of the calf)?
Besides having CED of +10 (or better) he has to have a milk epd of +24 or better.
If you wish, you can also give your thoughts on which Angus bull would add the most value to the calf regardless of CED epd or milk epd.

To clarify what the most value is: which bull has the highest selling calves at the moment (either gender) or which bull's calves would be the easiest to sell? Or, if you had cows/heifers ready to breed (with the intent of selling calves) and you could get semen on any bull, which bull would you use?
 
it Depends if you want to breed cattle or breed numbers here recently I do not think they correlate. People at sales here look at calving ease high numbered epds. Then they might look at the cattle. Imo it depends Which cattleman you are trying to connect with commercial or registered
 
Hogtiming,
So, give me your pick if it's for a sale and your pick if you are selling to the smartest cattleman you know.
Or, which bull if you are chasing number and which bull if you are looking for long-term success.
 
That really depends on your market and your directive.

I.E. we purchased some virgin heifers (120 head) who were of moderate frame from out of state. We knew the Montana heifers (from reputable operation) would be appealing to local cattlemen for the very reasons they were to us. We also knew that we either had to breed them to a well known sire or that of a regionally known seed stock. We opted for the regionally know and reputable and chose 2 of his sires for breeding with high calving. We felt with this situation, we were saving dollars on semen and providing our local buyers with a pregnancy that they're familiar with, so to speak. We won't calve these out ourselves, we plan to sell heavy bred.

As for everything else, we dabble in some "hot new" sires but stick mostly with what has already been successful for our operation. Our area and operation itself has been so heavily bred to SAV, we have over the last two breeding seasons... took the suggestions of sires from our semen guy with great success.

We don't have any Epics on the ground yet but on my trip to South Dakota, I visited an operation that has him on the ground and I love both bull and heifer calves! Will they be profitable? I don't know but his EPD's would certainly back it up.
 
Air Gator,
First of all interesting question. It all depends on your local/regional market..
I think about it slightly differently. When breeding heifers that we definitely are gonna sell as breds, I try to pick a well known bull out of a major semen company (Select, ABS, Genex). That doesnt necessarily mean I will use any bull, I pick a bull I would be happy with the performance of the calves myself of course. That being said this years bred heifers were mostly bred to Connealy Courage. A bull I am pretty satisfied with have some daughters in production, etc. If pinned down to a bull for next years breeding it would be either Courage or Deer Valley All In.

The other thing to consider is the strengths and weaknesses of the heifers you are breeding.. for instance our walking bull seems to do everything well but marbling, so when breeding his daughters I will use bulls that are strong for marbling. Are my customers ultrasounding or even retaining interest in the steers, no for the most part but your job as a seedstock producer is to attempt to cover all the bases for your customers..

SAV bulls seem to be popular most everywhere. Regionally most bulls in major semen catalogs with name recognition, Connealy, GAR, SAV, etc would help the price of the bred heifers for the most part.

As far as selling them as calves, depends on your cow herd more than anything else. Just too many variables, phenotypically and genotypically for example.
 
One thing to watch if breeding heifers is using unproven bull regardless of prefix. What I mean is yes initially he maybe calving ease but bulls can change epd wise and then you have a non ced bull. Could get in problems with heifers having to large of a calf.

We AI only to proven bulls on heifers. Hot bulls we flush donors too. Cows we still AI only to proven bulls. Just how we do it. May not be right may be right.

Blueprint at SS is being talked about. New bull and unproven.

GAR---ashland at geneX I've heard people talk some about. Unproven too.
 
NEFarmWife,
You have to know your market for sure. There aren't any regional bulls that I know around me.
Epic seems to be one of those diamonds in the rough that may have been overlooked had he not found a home at Express.
Origen seems to have a lot of nice bulls to choose from.

JSCunn,
I don't hear much about Deer Valley All In anymore...he's a little lower on milk than I would like
for one heifer I am thinking about but I have a really nice bull calf by him...long, smooth and slick.
If my memory is correct Courage and Comrade both came out at the same time and Comrade stole Courage's thunder.

Warrior,
Yes, you are absolutely right about waiting on bulls to see if they really are calving ease.
Var Discovery was +14 CED at first and now he is +5. I would be more inclined to use older bulls on heifers just because you would have an idea of what the bull throws and it may give you some idea of how the cow will do.
One bull that I have liked but haven't tried is Musgrave Aviator. When Barstow Cash jumped to $100 a straw I thought Aviator might be an option because he also has Upward and SAV Final Answer in his pedigree.
Summit is a bull that had a lot of positive word of mouth for a while but you don't hear anything about him either.
He is an example of a bull that you might be happy if you had heifers to keep but you might not do as well if you were trying to sell them. I know a lot of people have the attitude that all they want is a live calf out of a heifer and they don't worry so much about the quality of that calf. I guess I am greedy. I hope all my calves are keepers.

Thanks for your thoughts.
 
I am in total agreement on having "keepers" out of 1st calf heifers. I breed every cow and heifer with a "keeper" heifer in mind. IF I get a good bull, great, but I don't breed for them. This year 3 out of 6 I will be showing are out of 1st calf heifers.
 
Added: I believe in using a relatively easy calving bull on my heifers, but I don't go out of my way to find a super easy calver. I expect my heifers to work. I raise them up to their growth potential, and expect them to lay down & spit out a reasonable calf. Most are 75 to 95 depending on if they have a bull or heifer (we live in cold weather so our BW's are higher). My nephew has been here for 6 calving seasons and has not helped one heifer because calf was too big - only abnormal presentations.
 
There are a lot of people who know far more than I do about the Angus breed. I will ask this. Have you looked at Coleman Charlo? He does meet your calving ease and milk requirement, and he is a nice looking bull.
 
Gators Rule,
I have Charlo in the tank but this heifer is out of OCC Juneau and needs a little help with CEM.
I could use him on another heifer I have though. Thanks.
 
If you want direct CE and maternal calving ease and have you used the Angus Sire Search and put in what you want, including a higher accuracy, and looked at the list it spits out? That is pretty easy and lets you know of several ASAP.
 
Connealy Confidence Plus 17585576 at Genex deserves your consideration.
He's a proven son of Confidence (Tobin x Thunder) x Consensus
Confidence Plus sons have generated interest from A.I. studs....Woodhill Blueprint is new at Select Sires.

Confidence Plus
ced 14
bw -.4 with .91 accuracy
milk 27
cem 13 top 10%
doc 33 top 1%
hp top 25%
re top 1%
marbling top 15%
cw top 15%
$W top 10%
$F top 3%
$B top 5%

You might not like his 5.2 frame score, but yw top 5% while daughter mature height and weight is below average.
Top 1% rib eye yet also high marbling, nice and that's also unusual as they are often antagonistic to one another.
I would definitely use him before I'd use Charlo and Genex rates him one of their best bulls for conception.

I believe his daughters will be gentle with a brood cow look and the sons good enough to make an A.I. stud lineup.
Dang, I think I'm talking myself into buying some. :)
 
Ebenezer,
I usually forget to uncheck the box that limits the list to 100.
The one bull that was on there that I hadn't thought about was Jindra Acclaim.
I haven't seen any with my own eyes.

SOB,
I actually have semen out of his "old Man" Connealy Confidence.
Confidence Plus seems to be selling for about $250 a straw.
Not sure if he is dead or just having problems getting collected.

If anyone has experience with Jindra Acclaim...what are they like?
 
Niagra would sell easy and so would fortress here. I have seen fortress calves they are nice. I would prob roll the dice and breed to colonel tho.t I'm not worried about my heifers calving so ced I do not pay much attention to to an extent Example I would not breed them to harvestor tho. Commercial wise it depends on where your located. For my dads commercial cattle He sells a sitzupward replacements without an issue and for good money. But location is key. Imo I would not use charlo from my experience they dog either dog gentle or pit bull mean
 
SOB,
The crazy thing is that the semen is SELLING at that price.
I have also seen Byergo Black Magic with some sticker-shock prices but I don't think it sold..and then ABS had a limited available bulls and I think BBM semen sold in the $80 range.

Jeanne Simme Valley,
The Angus Journal had data on Calving ease in Feb.
From my recollection, there was basically no benefit to go beyond +10 CED.
I have learned my lesson from some posts on here about going too small on calves....I'm sure you have seen some photos on here. If they start out looking like a Poodle they probably won't end up looking like a Clydesdale.
Cow Pollinator also had a theory from his experience that you don't want a curve bender for a heifer because of the demand a growthy calf puts on the heifer...dragging her down and making it harder for her to breed back.
 
Did C Plus ever start producing again. First his sire had problams, now his son Plus has/had production issues. Anyone out there know more details of 0100 or Plus' issues getting collected, etc.?

We are getting heavy quickly on Final Answer/Capitalist and his son 316. And with a lot of heifers, I'll use 316 on all that aren't FA, but was looking to start using Epic on heifers. I've heard good on his calves, numbers are good at sales. But anymore information out there, like hair/shedding, udders, feet, etc on Epic??

EDIT POST. Just looked up Epics price, he went up to $45 (I want to say he was at 30). I have too many pricey bulls in the tank already ….. might have to regroup on these thoughts ….
 
Air gator":u897crmb said:
If anyone has experience with Jindra Acclaim...what are they like?

We flushed our donor to Jindra Acclaim. We used and sold the first flush. Did a live transfer on 6, we should have calves come Valentine's Day. Have basically sold all of her next, when we flush her again. We're waiting, since it's gotten so hot out.

But here in Nebraska, Acclaim sons are sellers and I like the looks of them. We're excited to see how they turn out.
 
torogmc81":199qw8io said:
Did C Plus ever start producing again. First his sire had problams, now his son Plus has/had production issues. Anyone out there know more details of 0100 or Plus' issues getting collected, etc.?

We are getting heavy quickly on Final Answer/Capitalist and his son 316. And with a lot of heifers, I'll use 316 on all that aren't FA, but was looking to start using Epic on heifers. I've heard good on his calves, numbers are good at sales. But anymore information out there, like hair/shedding, udders, feet, etc on Epic??

EDIT POST. Just looked up Epics price, he went up to $45 (I want to say he was at 30). I have too many pricey bulls in the tank already ….. might have to regroup on these thoughts ….

We used 50 straws of Epic on our virgin heifers. I'm telling you, he's remarkable! I saw many of his calves and they were all very uniform. Every one I pointed at, that I said I liked, was an Epic. Bull or heifer calf. Didn't matter.
 

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