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Best Angus Bull and Some Planning

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mytfarms

mytfarms

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Well, I haven't told all of you yet, but I've finally gotten my wild hair about club calves calmed down. :D BMR, you can now rest easy knowing that I won't have any more poodles. :wink: Anyhow, that brings me to my next topic. I've finally decided what I am going to do so far as raising cattle. I will be raising Angus and Angus hybrid cattle. I've seen the potential of Charolais on Angus. We have some LimFlex™ calves coming this spring. I like what I see in some of the Shorthorn Plus™ cattle. Balancer™ cattle look very good too. Baldies are awesome. I already raise Angus. So that led me to decide that pure Angus and Angus X cattle were it. I need to be able to sell forage finished steers for a premium to folks in town. I also need to make cattle that really work in a wide variety of situations. So this led me to a big question:
I've got good, solid, soggy made cows that are 95% or higher Angus. What bulls to use now? Here's the names and pictures of some bulls that I am either using this spring or am considering using in the future. Tell me what you think of this plan and the bulls, too.


OCC Legend 616L: Angus


OCCLegend616L.jpg


OCC Emancipate 889E: Angus


picture_emancipate.gif


CL 1 DOMINO 320N: Hereford


IMG_1249-1.jpg


Well, that's about it. If you have any suggestions for more (better) bulls, especially in the Simmi, Limmi, and Gelbvieh breeds, please speak up.
 
If it were me I would use either the angus bulls or the hereford bull. You might not get the growth you would with the continental bulls but at least you will be able to retain the daughters. I'm not a fan of continental cattle so maybe my opinion is a little biased.
 
badroute said:
If it were me I would use either the angus bulls or the hereford bull. You might not get the growth you would with the continental bulls but at least you will be able to retain the daughters. I'm not a fan of continental cattle so maybe my opinion is a little biased.
Click to expand...

I agree.
 
You're just bound and determined to get that poodle of Big Muddies ran over by a bull ain't cha.... :wink: :lol: :lol: :p

Go angus......
 
If you want to go the straight grassfinished route the Emancipate bull probably is more acceptable frame wise-we did a gov. test on our grass steers a few years back where they were ultrasounded then slaughtered-once you get a bit more frame in there it gets harder to do an acceptable job. To successfully grass finish cattle you better have your genetics,grass management and cattle management skills pretty sharp. The eassiest cattle to grass finish are dry two year old heifers it doesn't take alot to 'top' them up-the whole BSE/Age hocus pocus has kind of put an end to that. I know ourselves that's what we kill for our own table. Dylan Biggs 403 578-2404 is a good guy to talk to about grass finishing and marketing-he's been doing it for years.
 
Wow, thanks NR. Ya, I figured Emancipate would be the one to make grass fat calves. I will also still be graining out several each year not only for 4-H, but for our customers that prefer grain fattened. This year, that may be the only way to get calves fat. :? So I see most of you say Angus or Hereford. Welp, that one Hereford is one I am going to be using, and next spring I'd like to try NR's bull. NR, would that Herf of yours be pretty keen to make calves finish on grass? Well, we've been talking it over (me and Dad), and I got to wondering if maybe injecting a little growth every so often would really hurt that much. Legend would put in a little, plus he's made some excellent females. Also, the 320N bull of Ned Jr.'s will put in a tick. Any other British breed bulls that'd give me a little growth and still keep my moderate and easy doing? Thanks to you all!
Cade
 
Seeing as you're considering Gelbvieh, you may want to look also at Blonde d'Aquitaine, especially if there is a breeder near by.
This will give you an animal with superior feed conversion, higher cutability, more weaning pounds, and you'll be able to retain the daughters.
I'm not a British breeds fan, so my opinion may be a little biased.
 
I like this Char bull he has alot to offer read up on him if you want to change colors.
Just do not get to many breeds mixed in your herd as buyer would consider you a rainbow breeder and get calves sorted several ways as odds and ends calves.
We have had Chi Maine Angus for years pretty to look at but the growth just does not keep up with the maintance of the cattle. We are using Angus bulls and now are able to keep heifers.
To many times those big Exotic growthy calves were sorted off sold cheap and put in yearling pens by the buyers. It never worked for us.
It took a while for Angus to sell good bulls but the last 10 years they have done a good job doing that.
 
OK, some differing opinions here. :) That's OK though. I appreciate everyone admitting when they might be biased. Ya, I really don't want to be a rainbow breeder. That's not a very good way to build a customer base. I should probably stick to British breeds and black Continentals. (I.e., the black Simmental and Limousine bulls.)
 
Looking at the bull pictures the Emancipate bull would be the obvious choice to me, he is the right build to produce grass-fed beef. I wouldn't touch any of the continental breeds for your conditions or objectives. Don't get me wrong I like continental breeds, used to have purebred simmentals, but they just don't fit with grass fattening cattle or living in an area of sparse grass/precipitation. Oh, and by the way, just so you are clear - there are no "black continental" cattle - these are mongrelized Angus cross cattle. :lol:
 
With regards to being a 'rainbow breeder', the quickest way to even out a herd is with blonde, limo, or gelbviegh bulls. You'll get calves as even as pees in a pod.
Grassfarmer, around these parts black simmental are mongrelized exotics! :lol:
 
Silver said:
With regards to being a 'rainbow breeder', the quickest way to even out a herd is with blonde, limo, or gelbviegh bulls. You'll get calves as even as pees in a pod.
Grassfarmer, around these parts black simmental are mongrelized exotics! :lol:
Click to expand...
There's a saying:
If it ain't red, it ain't a purebred.

For just about any breed except Angus, that's right. Well, we'll see how our limo calves come out and if they're uniform and heavy muscled like I'm hoping, we might go that route again someday. BTW, I've been saving for a while, and I've got a stash of cash that's all gonna go to buying Emancipate semen. :D I've also set some aside for the 320N bull. Gonna take me a whole 'nother year to save up enough for buying semen again in 2010! :eek: :) Well, I guess sticking with Angus, Hereford, and outcrossing to growthier bulls in the same breeds will serve me OK.
 
You'll do just fine which ever way you go. There's lots of good cattle within any breed, and as they say there's more difference within breeds than there is between them. So as long as you know where you are, and where you want to be, you'll have a fine looking set of cattle regardless of colour.
 
Not sure I follow you silver.... Any Charolais, Limo, Gelbvieh, Saler, Simmental, South Devon (to name but a few) that is black has been mongrelized with Angus blood. Not that I have anything against Angus by any means - I just hate mongrelization period. It is taking cattle breeding back hundreds of years to pre the "great improvers" stage. This mongrelization also has implications when we consider hybrid vigor.
I read an article last week by a contributor to this site who was outlining the benefits of using hybrid vigor to increase efficiency and production. Mention was made of the excellent hybrid vigor boost you get by mating two different breeds that have been developed genetically different for hundreds of years. I thought the article conveniently overlooked the fact that if you breed say, a modern black Simmental with a black Angus cow you will not capture the hybrid vigor that would have been possible had your Simmental been genuine (ie yellow or red with broken spotted colors). I'm not even going to get into how much "alternative" blood is contained in the Angus breed, the comment on another thread about seeing more scurred Angus cattle around than we used to says it all.
 
Grassfarmer said:
Not sure I follow you silver.... Any Charolais, Limo, Gelbvieh, Saler, Simmental, South Devon (to name but a few) that is black has been mongrelized with Angus blood.
Click to expand...

Ahh... perhaps we were saying the same thing. I took what you originally said to mean that a black simmental (or other) was a black that was mongrelized by virtue of it's non angus blood, and therefore took that as a bit of a shot against non british cattle.
And my favorite thing to do on here is play devils advocate just to keep things interesting.
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
Don't worry MYT your young, you have lots of time to make mistakes. :wink: :lol:
Click to expand...

Oh, gee, how encouraging. :) Well, I'll stick with my blacks for a while. I mean, my Black Angus. A little Hereford to get some F1 crosses. Thanks for all the help. BTW, who's the hottest Angus and Hereford sires going today, respectively?
 

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