keep or cull

[Northern Rancher]

I should get that on my business cards lol. Lot of amateur pricks out there ruining the business lol.

[sw]

Gee thanks for all the expert advice, I guess at weaning this year I should post pictures of all of the bulls and let you have at them. As I said, I did this for fun because I already knew what the experts would say, plus I got some more rude comments from a real richard noggin. All this did was prove Denny's point about people feeding poorer bulls into a condition of making them look good. It also proved a point to me but I won't put it in writing

[Northern Rancher]

sw I used to send alot of bulls into Wtyoming preBSE that were in the same condition as that one. They loved the fact they didn't melt out breeding cows-I wished I'd had a camera the day I saw 6 bulls with my brand on the banks of the Powder River-looked pretty cool. Those cattle work for you-no reason to change.

[Kato]

Take a couple of more pictures of a side view. The front angle shot you took is a much better one than the side view. When they turn their head toward you, it knocks the neck all out of whack, and uneven ground makes the back sag.

Stand him with his front end slightly higher than back, from a low angle, just behind the girth, with his head facing frontwards, and you'd have a totally different bull. That's the way the pros do it for the catalogues.

Then we can judge him more fairly.

[kwebb]

Bulls can look like hell and make you a hell of a lot of money by throwing calves like nobody's business. I had a neighbor as a kid who had an awful looking Hereford that tried to kill anyone who got close to him. I remember asking why he kept that terrible animal around, and he said something like, "Son, that bull chases people at half speed and cows at full speed, and he makes good calves."

Other bulls can look like a million bucks and lay under a tree watching you starve without siring so much as a decent pile.

I'm reminded of a good friend that bought one of the champion heifers at the Houston stock show a while back--Beefmaster that cost $8,000. She calved and wouldn't feed her calf. He was having to put her in a squeeze chute twice a day to let the calf eat. Seems the heifer figured them udders were full of gold if she was worth $8000, and she wasn't just going to give it away.

You can't see what that bull can do for you and anybody who says they can is probably full of s***.

He's standing kinda funny, but he looks square and like he might thicken up some in the back. I'd keep him around if I had separate space from my cows and see how he develops as the seasons change. A bull that melts in summer ain't worth squat in Texas...I guess just like bulls up north in winter.

Give me a sorry looking bull that keeps my cows bred all the time and he can be a goat with twelve eyes and a unicorn. And I'll brag on him all the way to the sale barn with my trailer full of calves.

I only had three bull calves this year and I was happy about that because I'm expanding. I didn't cut the last one til he was pretty big because I thought he may turn into something. He didn't, but it doesn't really hurt that much to leave one uncut for a while to see if he may make something of himself.

Thanks for posting the pics. Gives us something to do for a while to make us feel smart.