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Non-EXT Sire questions

Haymaker, the horse brought $2900. She was hoping for more, but
you take what the market dictates. Sometimes you get a nice suprise in a good way, sometimes in a not so good way. :shock:

The horses they sold last year averaged $4500 at that sale, but the economy was better last year.

Thanks for asking.
 
My, its been an interesting afternoon on here since I started this thread. :P
When selecting sires, IMO it is the hardest thing to select for. I have passed on a lot of bulls because of questions in the pedigree. There has to be someone with a little more knowledge and experience in this area than I.
What are the odds of a sire throwing poor teated daughters if the Granddam is " Miss Torpedo Teats"?
What if she is the Great Granddam?
Would you buy the Bull if you liked everything else about him?
 
Not me. We hate bad udders. Why would you breed to a bull with that in his background? It won't take it long to show up, and then you've got a problem. Ok, you only get 50% with a bad udder. You still have too many problems from that bull.

There was a bull, I think his name was Protrend, but don't quote me on that. He was raised in our country and passed bad udders on to his daughters. The way I heard it, a stud bought him and wanted to see his mother. When they showed up to view the dam, she wasn't there. They got rid of her because of her bad udder. The bull did a lot of things right, but this was a killer for keeping replacement heifers. Now if you are looking for a terminal cross, then it isn't an issue. Just don't keep the heifers.

There are some clean pedigrees out there. You don't need to take a chance. Of course, you can get an undesireable udder anyway, but
if you're careful you shouldn't get very many. The stud books have
ratings for udder quality now, so that helps.

Good luck in what you decide to do. What bulls are you considering?
 
Horseless said:
My, its been an interesting afternoon on here since I started this thread. :P
When selecting sires, IMO it is the hardest thing to select for. I have passed on a lot of bulls because of questions in the pedigree. There has to be someone with a little more knowledge and experience in this area than I.
What are the odds of a sire throwing poor teated daughters if the Granddam is " Miss Torpedo Teats"?
What if she is the Great Granddam?
Would you buy the Bull if you liked everything else about him?
Click to expand...

You get no more advice from me...Mainly because I flat don't know- and I'm a poor one to be telling anyone anything after I let the catalog "experts" lead me down the high performance path to where it almost ruined the maternal ability of many of my cows...An expensive lesson- that I am working to correct...

As far as maternal qualities- breeding selection, inheritability, and linebreeding- I'd rank Larry Leonhardt of Shoshone Angus up there at the tops like FH said-- Also MikeK (Mike Keeney) that posts over on the 5BarX site...My son puts a lot of weight behind what Greg Golden has told him on maternal cattle too...
 
Faster horses said:
Not me. We hate bad udders. Why would you breed to a bull with that in his background?
Click to expand...

That's a good question and have asked myself that. I really want to ask the question to the Purebred owners selling the bulls, "why are you selling him with that in his background?"

I come across this fairly often at sales and or course a lot of pedigrees I am not familiar with also. Then you really don't know. I bought a bull 2 years ago from a breeder who says he doesn't put up with bad uddered cows. Well I have used this bull for 2 years, retained a few heifers some are yearlings now and have new calves on the ground also. This year I am questioning even using him, because Rito 2100 GDAR is the Sire of the maternal granddam(on the bottomside). Nice looking bull, has the nicest butt of all my bulls and the calves have looked great. Its the functioning daughters that I am worring about. I can't take the chance of have three years worth of heifers in the chain before I find out. (His calves might make up about 20% of my replacements.)
OCC Emblazon is the paternal Grandsire.
 
Horseless said:
Faster horses said:
Not me. We hate bad udders. Why would you breed to a bull with that in his background?
Click to expand...

That's a good question and have asked myself that. I really want to ask the question to the Purebred owners selling the bulls, "why are you selling him with that in his background?"

I come across this fairly often at sales and or course a lot of pedigrees I am not familiar with also. Then you really don't know. I bought a bull 2 years ago from a breeder who says he doesn't put up with bad uddered cows. Well I have used this bull for 2 years, retained a few heifers some are yearlings now and have new calves on the ground also. This year I am questioning even using him, because Rito 2100 GDAR is the Sire of the maternal granddam(on the bottomside). Nice looking bull, has the nicest butt of all my bulls and the calves have looked great. Its the functioning daughters that I am worring about. I can't take the chance of have three years worth of heifers in the chain before I find out. (His calves might make up about 20% of my replacements.)
OCC Emblazon is the paternal Grandsire.
Click to expand...

did you go through the breeders cow herd?
 
Ya, and OT and I are old dogs; but we learned a new trick. Moderate and maternal is the name of the game!

Here is a picture I took of a random commercial cow, grazing in August.

Please take a look at her bag. This was taken because she was where I could get a nice shot. There was no other reason, but it sure shows what I consider a good bag. It maybe could be attached a little further up her belly...

015-1.jpg



Horseless, you have brought up another point that I have discussed with breeders many times. Angus is a MATERNAL breed and as so, they don't have big butts. I remember Kit Pharo mentioning that when men sat in church pews, they touched and the shoulder, but women touched at the hips. I'm using this merely as an illustration. Limousin, Charolais, etc. have big butts, but they are a PATERNAL breed. It wasn't that long ago that they were used as draft animals and for meat. Not for reproduction or milking ability. So, why the big fuss over an Angus bull having a big butt. You are taking away the maternal when you select for that.
IMHO.

You mentiioned 2100 as did I. When we used him and sons of his,
we got some bad bags. Remember Pine Drive Big Sky? He was a hot
bull for a few years. Until...he had a lot of daughters in production. Suddenly, almost every breeder that had daughters, got rid of them.
Why? Udder quality.

Another thing about 2100; some of them had disposition problems.
And he could be a bit on the hard calving side. However, I see bulls touted as heifer bulls that carry his bloodline. Would I use a bull for a heifer bull that carried his genes? NOPE. Cause it's like the spaghetti sauce, IT'S IN THERE.

I would suggest, like someone else mentioned, go look at the cowherd.
Calving time would be best. Then you can see how the herd is udder-wise as a whole. I've found checking out the cows is a pretty good deal.

I respect you for having questions and not just breeding to get a cow bred, but to get her bred RIGHT.
 
Checking out the cow herds of potential bull purchases is a good idea. It's just very tough to do at calving time. Any other time you don't get a good picture of teat quality.

I am not going to argue with you Faster Horses on 'moderate and maternal is the name of the game." There is a lot to be said for that when running cows in our country. If I was only running cattle to raise replacements thats what I would be looking at period. But I am fortune that I can breed in seperate pastures for cattle just for replacements and other pastures for terminal breeding. All cattle are sold on the grid the last couple years with EID tags. I have room for improvement. The cows have to work for me here at home and they also need to work in the feedlot. I have discussed with the feedlot and they full understand this. My cattle are not going to top any chart as far as carcass. But they are going to be respectable. I believe I can do this by staying under a 6 frame, but over a 5 frame.

Now FH, for the picture, nice cow and teats. Did her sire have a nice butt?
I realize angus might not have the butts of a charolais, but they still need to have one. In the moderate frame cattle arena, I think I could name a lot of bulls with nice butts, from Ohlde breeding, Diamond D and others all focusing on maternal traits. So I am not sure I agree with that one as this bull I have is from that breeding.

For Angus being a maternal breed I should be able to buy with confidence that they will throw good teat and uddered cattle. I don't think many breeders are providing that confidence yet.
 
As with everything I think we should be looking for moderation. The modern Angus breed has largely been selected for terminal sire traits in recent years, growth, carcass power sires etc have turned it into a black exotic. Hence the need for folks like Shoshone to market their "strain within a breed" - getting back to true Angus traits. I have always found that to get the best females you have to give up a little on the steer conformation side. Why do we always want it all today? the best females and the best feedlot steers?
Horseless, how do the feedlots reward you for top steers over average steers? is it enough to override the advantages of having better females? As for backends on Angus cattle it's like everything else - it goes in cycles. In Scotland they got in such a mess in the 50s-60s with the overly small blocks of beef that they had to import Angus bulls from N. America to compensate. These were tall, narrow bulls that seemed too extreme. One old boy that was an old time cattle breeder commented that "when I was a boy the purpose of the Angus tail was to cover it's asshole, now it seems the purpose is to cover it's whole ash" In time they have bred some moderation back in and found an acceptable balance. I guess the same will happen here - I predict a move away from terminal types more to the Shoshone type but breeders will shoot right past that model and will finish up with cattle with no backends and then we'll need the exotic, big backend type again. I really don't think there is much new in cattle breeding, just the same old cycles.
 
I raise Hereford's and I put a bag score in the catalog for the mother of every bull I sell, that way they don't have to go through my cows trying to find a good bag. On a scale of 1-9 I think I average a high 6 or 7.

CopyofY22.jpg

Bag score 4

B17.jpg

Bag score 5

B08.jpg

Bag score 6

Mytypeofcows016.jpg

Bag score 7

CopyofR05.jpg

Bag score 8

B22X3.jpg

Bag score 9

THe pictures can be deceiving because I score them as soon as they calf(or maybe even the day before) and the pictures are a month later but you get the idea.
 
Good post grassfarmer!!

And horseless, I envy you being able to run 2 cowherds. One for replacements and one for carcass/weight/steers. We can't do that,
we don't have enough cows. So we made the decision to go for the good females. The steer calves are a by-product, so to speak.

I'm with grassfarmer on the Shoshone cattle. Been there twice and Larry Leonhardt is always a learning experience. I can't say as I understand everything he says; he has dry humor--but I wish he was closer so I could visit with him more. What he is doing/has done is what he believes in. He's not part of the Montana Angus mafia. He doesn't try to sell his bulls, he never advertises them. But they are sure worth looking at.

The first time we visited there in 1998 or 1999, he said, "no one wants to buy my bulls, but everyone wants to buy my cows." That says a mouthful.
 
I haven't met Larry but I'd sure like to. I've read a lot of his philosophies recently on the 5BarX forum and I've been impressed. I'd like to see the cattle before I pass final judgment though!

Here is a thought Horseless - if you run two pastures, one for breeding terminal cross calves why do you even have an Angus bull in that pasture? Presumably you would do significantly better using a bull of a terminal sire breed and pick up the hybrid vigor advantage. If it's an Angus beef program issue couldn't you still qualify using a black hided exotic on your Angus cows?
 
Grassfarmer said:
Horseless, how do the feedlots reward you for top steers over average steers?
Click to expand...

I would consider the feedlot my customer. I don't expect them to reward me for anything. I am trying to provide them with what they want.
Just like you are a customer of a seed stock producer. Do you reward them for providing what you want? They're just providing for your demand.
I used to breed to charolais and recently went away from that. Several reasons. Maybe I will go back someday. :???: But I needed to get my cow herd straightened out. I got the Angus for the marketing. It hasn't hurt me yet. I am not even going to try to go to black something else. I would rather turn back to the charolais (white). Or I will go with raising good black baldies. I raise a few of my own Angus bulls, but not enough and I don't want to screw up on them.

Doug,
That's what every bull producer needs to do. :!: :!: :!:
I keep a teat & udder score on every one of the cows and every cow gets weighed. I use my own system 1-5 with a 1 as the best.

I would think there would be genetic markers for this trait and seedstock producers could help identify it.

Hay feeder,
I'll check out the HARB Windy bull.

All good discussion :D :D
 
Another quote from Larry Leonhardt, Grassfarmer. And this one is about himself personally.

"I'm just a dirty little beet farmer."--Larry Leonhardt.

And thats his attitude.

He says he chased the permformance thing for years. Bought the highest gaining, top bulls on test. Said it didn't work; those bulls are outliers and won't breed back to themselves; they will breed back to the average of that line of cattle. He also lost milking ability. In 1979 he bred a son back to his mother and he called this bull ECHO. So anything you see from
Shoshone Angus that has the ECHO in the line, is from this very linebred bull.

When you see his cows, they are like they have been cloned. They all look alike.

He does not sell yearling bulls as he doesn't want to push them. He sells 200 coming 2-year olds. This year he priced them all at $1800. Take your pick. And he delivers them to you.
 
Larry Leonhardt sure could raise alot of SUGAR beets they are more up there than one thinks . When coming off the mountain from Red ? Deer ? Lodge Mt you will find his herd right at Crowley.
Most of the ranchers near Greybull ,Powell and Thermop area get a big joke out of what they call his Wyoming inbred cattle.
Nice name good talk when I come off that mountain I am glad to see anything alive even BLM Feedlot horses.
Sorry to be so hard but there is always two sides of the coin.
OCC and Leonhardt cattle just do not work for the feeder buyers, Cow Calf operations here nor the purebred breeders.
 
Hay Feeder said:
Larry Leonhardt sure could raise alot of SUGAR beets they are more up there than one thinks . When coming off the mountain from Red ? Deer ? Lodge Mt you will find his herd right at Crowley.
Most of the ranchers near Greybull ,Powell and Thermop area get a big joke out of what they call his Wyoming inbred cattle.
Nice name good talk when I come off that mountain I am glad to see anything alive even BLM Feedlot horses.
Sorry to be so hard but there is always two sides of the coin.
OCC and Leonhardt cattle just do not work for the feeder buyers, Cow Calf operations here nor the purebred breeders.
Click to expand...

Sorry Hay Feeder, could you run that past me again? I did not understand most of your post - the last paragraph was fine but I don't know what the first two were about.
 
The previous post said LL raised beets. There is alot of sugar beets (crop) in that area. Some might of thought that was a sp.
I drove over that moutain on a short cut form the airport from Billings some time ago to Thermopolis Wy that was what I was refereing to.
At that time the Feds issued a feedlot for wild horses north of Crowley on the Montana Wyoming line
 
Horseless, what Hay Maker just posted in response to FHs comments about Shoshone was really what I was getting at when I asked you how the feedlots rewarded you for top steers over average steers. If by breeding a vastly superior cow type, one that will be highly productive and consistently one that stays in the herd, breeding poorer feedlot steers might not be a big price to pay. So what if the discount is $100 on a weaned steer calf? compared to having a superior cow left in the herd for 10 years plus I think that would be a small price to pay.
It seems so many breeders want it all, ease of calving but huge growth rates, high milk but low maintanence. So much time is spent chasing the curve bender that claims to give all these attributes and more. For most the search will prove illusive and they will be left with cattle exhibiting extremes of one kind or another - because there is no consistency and no moderation. JMO
 
Wow Hay Feeder, yoiu are covering a lot of country with this remark:


"OCC and Leonhardt cattle just do not work for the feeder buyers, Cow Calf operations here nor the purebred breeders."

Shoshone Angus has been in business for a long, long time.
You will find Shoshone in many pedigrees. We never had a bit
of trouble selling our Shoshone calves, The same guy came and bought them
for years, because he liked what the calves did on feed. He sells to restaurant trade and we've had good luck % wise making CAB. Straight angus
calves have a niche market, because they are somewhat different
than crossbred calves.( Note, I did not say crossbred cattle were not good.) Our calves generally finish out in May and that seems to work well for the person buying the calves. Our mineral program works well for him too, as he doesn't have much, if any, sickness while he owns them.

So, although my intention is not to make you mad--I just won't buy what your said. :shock:
 

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