HerefordSire
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What is your average running frame size Aaron?
WTK Continental. Pics or info?
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Aaron
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CPL":xxspqnwy said:
BW Avg. this year was 92 lbs for spring calves across both bulls and heifers. Range is 70 to 115 lbs. That is up from the last few years (~88 lbs), but down from about 5 years ago, where the average was right around 100 lbs. The heavy calves always do better, regardless of breed up here. I know purebred Angus guys that have average BW of 70 lbs...calve same date...and their calves are 100 to 150 lbs behind ours and Hereford neighbors come October. That difference also shows up between our light birth weight and heavier birthweight bulls. I say heavy birth weight for your comparison, because 90-95 lbs up here is considered moderate size. Over 110 lbs is heavy.
The range would be 4 to 6.5, with the majority being in the 5 to 5.5 frame. :cowboy:HerefordSire":xxspqnwy said:
alacattleman
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i thought the reasons the bigger ones, were slow too get going was because of a hard labor.... if you got cows that handle the birth weight should'nt make a difference
Aaron
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KNERSIE":2a5be8d3 said:
Just quickly looking at some records for comparison.
2002 calves.
106 lb bull...205 day 638 lbs
95 lb heifer...205 day 565 lbs
83 lb heifer...205 day 409 lbs
84 lbs heifer...205 day 466 lbs
I think a lot comes down to the cows. Our cows are long, small, thick and wide. Lots of room for big calves and can easily calve them out. The average mature cow weight is only around 1200 lbs. My neighbour has bred purebreds for decades and always points out that the quickest way to ruin a good cowherd is to breed for low birthweight calves.
You get these low birthweight calves that come without hassle, out of cows that couldn't handle bigger calves because there wasn't any selection for capacity or pelvic area. These cows are sold bred to a commercial guy and he wonders why these calves are weaning off so much lighter than his other calves and then starts to say bad things about the breed at the coffee shop.
Best thing a lot of guys could do is breed their cows to a bull that throws 90 lb calves and then sell off those cows that can't handle calving those calves out. This is under the assumption that the person doing this already has a relatively uniform herd that he is happy with so that he isn't accidently selecting for bigger framed cows when he is culling the ones that can't calve out bigger calves.
I've seen some of our small cows pop out 120 lb calves no problem, and seen a cow a frame score higher or better and 300 lbs heavier have a real time with it. So the big calves only for big cows doesn't hold much creedence with my philosophies. :cowboy:
RD-Sam
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That is really odd, some of my cows weighed about 20 pounds less at birth, and had the same or higher weaning weights, that is Angus also. I'll take the lower birth weights over the higher ones any day. Just for example, one of my cows was 66 pounds at birth, weaned at 565. Bulls only slightly higher at birth(72), but 40-70 pounds higher at weaning.
KMacGinley
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Your 90 to 100 lb calves end up as 1200lb cows?
Aaron
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Again, looking at some weights, the range on a few culls that we have sold.
BW 84-92 lbs
Mature weight 1030 to 1250 lbs.
Looking further back, had a heifer that weighed 106 BW and was sold at 1320 lbs (5 years old). Now, she is an outlier because she got another kick at the can, but ended up losing her calf...so she weighed a good 100 lbs more than she should have. Soggy cow. Good cow too.
Another cow, 90 lbs BW..sold as 7 year old...1083 lbs. Carrying good flesh.
I am getting the idea that you guys are hiding some monster cows out there? All I can say is, practicality. Give me big calves in the spring, give me big calves in the fall and don't get too big while doing it year after year...oh..and I don't want to have to mess around with you, ever. Do all this and you will be loved and taken care of. :cowboy:
BW 84-92 lbs
Mature weight 1030 to 1250 lbs.
Looking further back, had a heifer that weighed 106 BW and was sold at 1320 lbs (5 years old). Now, she is an outlier because she got another kick at the can, but ended up losing her calf...so she weighed a good 100 lbs more than she should have. Soggy cow. Good cow too.
Another cow, 90 lbs BW..sold as 7 year old...1083 lbs. Carrying good flesh.
I am getting the idea that you guys are hiding some monster cows out there? All I can say is, practicality. Give me big calves in the spring, give me big calves in the fall and don't get too big while doing it year after year...oh..and I don't want to have to mess around with you, ever. Do all this and you will be loved and taken care of. :cowboy:
greenwillowhereford II
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Yankee is no 10 BW. He is more like around 1.5-2, and is considered a calving ease bull. I presume you were talking about Churchill Yankee.
Everyone's environment is different. RDSam, you may have better forage than Aaron. Do you creep? Or maybe you just have higher growth genetics. What is the mature cow size of your herd? We know for certain that northern BW is higher. It has to do with increased blood (nutrient)flow to the vitals as the animal is surviving harsh weather.
Everyone's environment is different. RDSam, you may have better forage than Aaron. Do you creep? Or maybe you just have higher growth genetics. What is the mature cow size of your herd? We know for certain that northern BW is higher. It has to do with increased blood (nutrient)flow to the vitals as the animal is surviving harsh weather.
KMacGinley
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Aaron":1095w06k said:
You are, if taken at your word and I have absolutely no reason not to based on my sense of you as a poster on here, defying the normal antagonisms in a reverse manner. ie... Larger calves = Larger mature weights.
RD-Sam
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I was just looking at the cows I have purchased and the offspring they had prior to me having them. I am new at this, and will be turning in all the data on everything from here on out. Don't have any mature heights on anything yet. One cow had a bull that was 1165 YW if I remember correctly. I do however think it has to do with the higher growth genetics. One cow has been producing curve benders, low BW and high YW. Some were on creep, some were not.
Aaron
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greenwillowhereford II":3hb95tup said:
No greenwillow...you weren't reading close enough....talking about cow killers...this bull: BAR B 15S YANKEE :cowboy:
http://www.reedent.com/reedent/cattle/b ... ankee.html
greenwillowhereford II
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RD-Sam":1i5bf6qz said:
The next question is, do you know if they would be higher growth genetics if they were in Aaron's environment? And creep does make a difference, more so when forage is less than ideal. Also, Aaron may have some curve benders himself; he's just dealing with averages I'd guess in this discussion. Again, are you as far north?
Not trying to give you a hard time, just open discussion. We've had yearling weights in the range you mentioned with BW in the 80's.
greenwillowhereford II
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Aaron":29jgdhat said:
Sorry :tiphat:
RD-Sam
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Here is one of the cows (angus) and her offspring.
Cow - BW-none WW - 627 (creep) YW - 805 (says MGT is 5?)
...................(Ratio 101).........(Ratio 98)
Bull calf - BW-none WW - 750 (creep) YW - 1166 (MGT is 5?)
........................(Ratio 110).........(Ratio 107)
Bull calf - BW - 66_____WW - 734 (no creep) YW -none
...........(Ratio 85).....(Ratio 106)
Cow - BW-none WW - 627 (creep) YW - 805 (says MGT is 5?)
...................(Ratio 101).........(Ratio 98)
Bull calf - BW-none WW - 750 (creep) YW - 1166 (MGT is 5?)
........................(Ratio 110).........(Ratio 107)
Bull calf - BW - 66_____WW - 734 (no creep) YW -none
...........(Ratio 85).....(Ratio 106)
We had a run of 50-55 lb calves that weaned right in the same ballpark as the 70-75 calves. Steers avg mid 6s heifers avg low 6s. But as has been pointed out, our foarge may be better then other producers. We don;t creep and the only grain the get is a little during the weaning period then a couple of mouthfuls on the days that we have someone that needs to be brought up and caught to AI.
For my market (more so than my conditions) I'd rather have the curvebenders where the curve goes from small at birth to reasonably weaning than big at birth to reasonable weaning weight.
If you want to over complicate things I select for BW of 6-7% of the mature cow weight. Whether my cows can handle more or not isn't really the argument, but whether my bull customers' cows can handle more will ultimately decide how long I'll be in the bullselling business.
We also tend to forget where herefords fit in in the bigger picture. They are basically maternal breed (fertility, doing ability, converter poor forage to beef, more than milking maternal) If we stack BW on the maternal side of the crossbred commercial herds, where are they going to go to use a terminal sire where higher BW is expected.
Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% with Aaron that registered herefords should be able to handle bigger than average calves, I've said all along if you need to use a calving ease cow freshener to open heifers I question the usefullness of the heifers. I am just not convinced we need to produce bulls that sire heavy calves when we are losing market to angus.
If you want to over complicate things I select for BW of 6-7% of the mature cow weight. Whether my cows can handle more or not isn't really the argument, but whether my bull customers' cows can handle more will ultimately decide how long I'll be in the bullselling business.
We also tend to forget where herefords fit in in the bigger picture. They are basically maternal breed (fertility, doing ability, converter poor forage to beef, more than milking maternal) If we stack BW on the maternal side of the crossbred commercial herds, where are they going to go to use a terminal sire where higher BW is expected.
Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% with Aaron that registered herefords should be able to handle bigger than average calves, I've said all along if you need to use a calving ease cow freshener to open heifers I question the usefullness of the heifers. I am just not convinced we need to produce bulls that sire heavy calves when we are losing market to angus.
Northern Rancher
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Nothing warms a ranchers heart more than reading about 120 pound Hereford calves-especially if he has a pen of Angus bulls needs selling. I ranch in the heaviest concentration of cattle in Saskatchewan-if you draw a 75 mile circle around our place there are probably 100,000 mother cows. Twenty five or thirty years ago Herefords and especially Polled Herefords probably bred over half those cows-I bet they'd be lucky to breed 5 percent now. Most guys up here if they wanted a Hereford cow to have a big calf with explosive growth used a Charolais or Fleckvieh Simmental bull on her. Trying to turn Herefords into Simmentals has almost caused their complete demise in ranch country-I don't know of any big outfit in my area running polled herefords a few still run Horned. We calve out on grass-cows that can't calve end up sliding out the north end of a south bound coyote-I don't know much but I bet the rate of gain and profit potential on a 80lb live calf is better than a 125 lber that we dragged to the s...pile because his momma couldn't have him. We have some cows that have big calves but I sure don't look for it and those heifers get fed out. Herefords strength in their glory days was efficient cows that could take care of themselves and raise a profitable calf-there's some still out there but you have to look hard to find them. Our cows have enough challenges taking care of business on forage alone-breeding them to some overpromoted behemouth shouldn't be one of them. I do alot of custom heifer A'I' nothing chills my blood more than a customer with a bunch of big BW heifers to breed-picking a bull that will calve on them is a crapshoot at best.
Northern Rancher":w8cd53y2 said:
Here comes my usaul saying: I challenge to cows to raise a big valf not have a big calf. There are bulls that will give you a vigorous smaller claf that grows like a weed after it's born.
These were cows but thewy had to be able to have a good sized calf as heifers. One cow on her second calf had it unassisted with the malprsentation of it's right leg over it's neck and on the left side. The other was a cow that on her fourth calf deliver4ed it breech, unassited. Both calves were dead, but the cows recovered within a day or 2.
