Angus guys looking for advice

[Bent C Angus]

Hi folks,

My father and I are looking at changing up our breeding program for our angus herd a bit this year. We run about 325 cows together with most of them being solid black and maybe 30 or so being red angus cows. about half the herd are the kind of cows that we both like. moderate, easy fleshing good angus cows. We will keep breeding these cows to Angus bulls and keeping the females we like. The other half we find are to big and are the cows with poorer udders or feet. We are wondering about AI ing the poorer cows to the Charolais bull Blue Grass from LT. Has anyone used him on angus based cattle? These are our larger cows that are 1400 and up.

We want to try the Charolais to get some hybrid vigor into the calves that we won't be keeping replacements out of. I also manage the feerer cattle on a large feedlot in the area. We have been selling all of our steer calves to the feedlot the last 4 years. We always get a good price from the owner and our family friend. Just trying to up the lbs sold each year.

Can anyone help us out with Charolais bloodlines? We've only heard good stories about LT Charolais and we hae an opportunity to buy semen out of Blue Grass from a neighbour. Any help?

 

[river rat]

We AI'd some cull type cows to LT Bluegrass a few years ago and sold them to my niece and her husband who raise char cross calves. The majority of the cows were not all oversized but some were 1500+ pound cows, not tall but huge volumed. I saw their calves at branding and again at weaning. The rest of the Charolais bulls they use are bigger framed, way bigger birth, and coarser made bulls. I really liked the BlueGrass as they were just more muscular and shapey, and although I think they may have given up a little performance, my niece said that the calves sired by the others all had a pretty big headstart at birth!!! So if your looking for more modest birth, and if you are using the bull on big framed cows, I think he would be a good choice for you. If your not concerned with birthweight and just looking for total performance, there are probably other Char bulls out there that will out preform him. I hope this insight helps a little.

 

[Bar M]

I agree with river rat not on the point that he used a good char bull on cull type cows. But with using blue grass genetics I have one blue grass son on the place the balance are JAB Top Shelf and Keys Tenor sons (not real impressed with them yet but will see in the spring).
I have never went to the LT sale but from what it looks like they get along pretty good. There are many more I am sure just the few lines i use.

 

[BRG]

Don't know for sure about Blue Grass, but I do know the LT ranch has a great program and have a super set of Char cows. Brent is a good guy and breeds hard for maternal, calving ease, and carcass. His bulls are very masculine and sound. I have been to the sale and I even helped trim the bulls for a couple years. Solid program all the way around.

 

[Justin]

if you're having to deal with big, bad bagged, poor footed cows, my suggestion would be to start culling that part of the herd as hard as you can and try to keep more replacements out of the better half. you can breed them all to the best char bull on the planet, but you still got that big, bad bagged, poor footed cow eating most your feed.

just my opinion. :wink:

 

[gcreekrch]

if you're having to deal with big, bad bagged, poor footed cows, my suggestion would be to start culling that part of the herd as hard as you can and try to keep more replacements out of the better half. you can breed them all to the best char bull on the planet, but you still got that big, bad bagged, poor footed cow eating most your feed.

just my opinion. :wink:

And that's the truth cause Stone Cold said so! :wink: :lol:

 

[cowman52]

I'm all for the culling part, just one hang up to it, can you buy replacements to take their place, either dollar wise or availability wise?
I would tend to think finding a bull to correct the udder problems might be easier to move the program along than just blowing it up and starting over.

 

[Denny]

Ai'ing is alot of work and when doing so your calves will get strung out a bit. Myself I'd buy enough bulls to get it done in a timely manner and turn them out. We AI our registered cows and if it were'nt for that I would'nt mess with it. I've got alot of Daughters of the Next big thing AI sire's and our daughters from our $1500 boughten bulls are as good or better.To much emphasis spent on looking for the great one not enough for the good ones.

 

[cowman52]

I'm going to disagree on a I being a lot of work, for 15 a head you can sync the groups, semen is 15 on a comm basis, and I bet you have enough bull power to clean up with. You might not want to do it but once but you will have a more consistent calf crop rather than calves out of 10 to 20 bulls, and the ones you a I you may use that info to cull some at the chute.

 

[leanin' H]

if you're having to deal with big, bad bagged, poor footed cows, my suggestion would be to start culling that part of the herd as hard as you can and try to keep more replacements out of the better half. you can breed them all to the best char bull on the planet, but you still got that big, bad bagged, poor footed cow eating most your feed.

just my opinion. :wink:

And that's the truth cause Stone Cold said so! :wink: :lol:

It's tough for me to agree with you two wingnuts but i do. I'd only keep the cream of the cream for replacements and use the money from the heifers you would'a kept to buy the kind of cattle you want. Ya might not be able to buy as many good heifers, but quality will pay for itself over time. Good luck and hope it works for ya.

 

[katrina]

Bad bags are just tooooo much work.... Way to much stress on you and the cow. And the calf just never does really well.... Sell em!!!!!!

 

[Justin]

if you're having to deal with big, bad bagged, poor footed cows, my suggestion would be to start culling that part of the herd as hard as you can and try to keep more replacements out of the better half. you can breed them all to the best char bull on the planet, but you still got that big, bad bagged, poor footed cow eating most your feed.

just my opinion. :wink:

And that's the truth cause Stone Cold said so! :wink: :lol:

8) :wink:

 

[Justin]

if you're having to deal with big, bad bagged, poor footed cows, my suggestion would be to start culling that part of the herd as hard as you can and try to keep more replacements out of the better half. you can breed them all to the best char bull on the planet, but you still got that big, bad bagged, poor footed cow eating most your feed.

just my opinion. :wink:

And that's the truth cause Stone Cold said so! :wink: :lol:

It's tough for me to agree with you two wingnuts but i do.

i knew sooner or later you'd jump on board, H. :lol: :lol:

 

[Bent C Angus]

Thanks everyone for the advice, the reason were looking at Blue Grass is because our neighbor (charolais/simmental breeder) has a pile of his semen sitting around at his place. Both my father and I really like the looks of the LT bulls and the few females that we've seen around. We don't want to to jump right in and buy Char bulls. Most of the breeders around are breeding the old fashion full french type Char bulls and we don't want to go anywhere near that. We run a feedlot here at home and I work with a family friend on his. We've seen to many nice smoky calves come through to not try them out.

If AI ing to Blue Grass works out we'd probably spend the money and buy char bulls. We hae a good set up to AI in now because we just pass the cows through the steer barn facilities.

We don't feel like our bottom half of the herd has to be culled out just yet. A lot of them are still real good cows, we jsut won't keep replacements out of them. If we don't get a live calf in the spring the cow goes after we polish her up for a week or two in the feedlot. So even the cows that are getting bred charolais are all expected to give a live calf. Any cow with an udder that's so bad a calf can't drink is already gone form here (I like to think so anyways ) :lol:

Thanks for the advice. We've heard a lot of good things about LT both from Rancher's and friends out west

 

[Faster horses]

I'll echo what everyone else is saying about LT.
We have a friend who is a cattle buyer in Iowa. He attends the sale and
buys his own bulls and some for his neighbors at the LT sale. He has nothing
but the best to say about the people and their cattle (both breeds).

Like I said, this is pretty much just an echo.

Our neighbor uses Charolais bulls on Black Angus cows, has for years.
He did get in a bit of a storm having some double muscled calves out of
the Charolais bulls. Not every year, of course, but enough to make him
nervous and they watch the cows like most people watch heifers.

Good luck to you!

 

[PATB]

It may be worth the time and effort to sync and AI the bottom half of the herd then turn them in with the clean up bulls. Use top end maternal genetics on the keepers and breed for growth and carcass on the others. The secret is to sell all of the offspring from the lower group. Just because a cow has a few challenges does not mean she can not produce excellent feeder cattle.

 

[Denny]

I'm going to disagree on a I being a lot of work, for 15 a head you can sync the groups, semen is 15 on a comm basis, and I bet you have enough bull power to clean up with. You might not want to do it but once but you will have a more consistent calf crop rather than calves out of 10 to 20 bulls, and the ones you a I you may use that info to cull some at the chute.

Well where I went to school 1/2 of 325 head is'nt 15 If you don't get them to settle AI it's 21 days later so I'd bet 50% will be late from one reason or another and 50% are going to be bull bred. I've AI'ed for quite awhile it's great for the ones that settle messes up the rest. But I know I'm the only one who only gets 50% bred ai everyone else gets 99.95% So now that they are truly strung out they are very inconsistant no matter the sire...

Another thing is the cost,cydrs,lute,gnrh,semen some paid labor at least at my place figures out to $50 a cow for every cow bred in a timed AI program to end up getting from 50 to 65% settle rate that basiically makes every live calf cost somewhere between $80 to $100 in ai cost not includeing your own labor that could have been used elsewhere or the extra fuel spent running back and forth from home to the ai pasture. It's fun but make no mistake it's not cheap or easy.

 

[Horseless]

Hi folks,

My father and I are looking at changing up our breeding program for our angus herd a bit this year. We run about 325 cows together with most of them being solid black and maybe 30 or so being red angus cows. about half the herd are the kind of cows that we both like. moderate, easy fleshing good angus cows. We will keep breeding these cows to Angus bulls and keeping the females we like. The other half we find are to big and are the cows with poorer udders or feet. We are wondering about AI ing the poorer cows to the Charolais bull Blue Grass from LT. Has anyone used him on angus based cattle? These are our larger cows that are 1400 and up.

We want to try the Charolais to get some hybrid vigor into the calves that we won't be keeping replacements out of. I also manage the feerer cattle on a large feedlot in the area. We have been selling all of our steer calves to the feedlot the last 4 years. We always get a good price from the owner and our family friend. Just trying to up the lbs sold each year.

Can anyone help us out with Charolais bloodlines? We've only heard good stories about LT Charolais and we hae an opportunity to buy semen out of Blue Grass from a neighbour. Any help?

Haven't kept up with Charolais lines, but seems they have come down in birthweights and see more finer boned charolais now. In general, I don't see that you will have any problems. Not sure how you go about marketing your calves. It does create more of a challenge when half are Char cross, then the other half Angus. On the other hand, when you breed them "black" someone somewhere, will try to make a replacement of them. If you can get over the marketing hurdles, you are doing a good thing. Culling large numbers is difficult, they will weed themselves out over time, just don't sell the offspring as replacements. Charolais is a great choice.