• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Pharo Cattle Company Bulls

B

Broke-T

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 12, 2006
Messages
61
Location
Central Mississippi
I was wandering what ya'll thought about Kits bulls. I got the spring catalogue yesterday.

I like a the idea of the easy keepin, easy fleshing bulls, but can't convince myself to go to frame 2 and 3 bulls. I realize that a lot of my cows that weigh 1400 are too large but bulls with yearling weights of 750 to 850 seem mighty small.

What experience have ya'll had?

Johnny
 
Johnny, I personally don't want to go back in time 50 years. You might not have been around when a calf that weaned 250 was the norm.

We have much better resources down here than to go that route.
 
Are they the ones in Kansas that don't feed out their bulls they just raise them on the range so they look scruffy and are lighter?
 
I would check out Oholde Cattle Company much more modern.Were suppose to be progressive cattlemen Kits so far the other way it's redicolus.

He preaches about running cows out all winter just picking well if you did that here
1. they would starve to death

2.you would get tossed in jail for cruelty to animals

3.you would go broke the first winter

4 whoever you rented the land from would toss you out and everyone in the neighborhood would'nt rent to you.
 
IMO, I think Soapweed's "moderation in all things" philosophy particularly applies to bulls. IMO, Kit deviates a bit too far beyond moderation. The old adage, "you can't starve a profit out of a cow" particularly applies to bulls.
There are breeders out there who do overfeed their seedstock. When those pampered bulls hit the real world of ranching, they fall apart.

IMO, Kit overreacts the other way. A bull that doesn't have his proper nutritional needs met will simply not be able to breed cows as he should.

There has to be a happy medium of meeting the high performance animals nutritional needs without breaking the feed budget to do it.

It has been my observation that bulls do require a bit more TLC to get through the winter than the average range cow. I'm running a couple coming 3 Hereford bulls and a coming 2 Angus bull with my cows for winter mostly for my own convenience. It's been a mild winter. The cattle have held their moderate condition but by no means have they gotten fat grazing native pasture, with only a little supplement, salt/mineral. and 2 yr old hay now since there is snow on the ground.

In another month when I start calving I will seperate the bulls and treat them a bit better to put on some condition before turnout time in July.
 
Have any of you gotten to attend one of Kit's sales?
I have and it is very interesting.

I appreciate his Cowboy Auction,
there is no chance of someone pulling a bid out of the air. Everything
is right up front, no gimmicks.

As for the bulls, I didn't care for how the forage tested bulls looked, BUT...
people that have bought them before are back to buy them again and
they swear they gain weight during breeding season. Someone here bought a heifer bull from him and is pleased with the calving ease. However, he says he keeps the bull hid so no one sees him.

If you are an EPD person, you definitely wouldn't be interested in what he has.

One of our customers bought 3 yearling bulls from him that had been fed some, but they weren't fat. They carried enough condition to look good and he bred 140 heifers with 3 yearling bulls for 30 days and had 12 drys.
Today, the bulls would be coming 4 years old, and he says they are the best looking bulls on the ranch. He is going to go for the grassfed deal and is more excited about that than he as ever been about anything in the ranching business.

Kit has a pretty high average on his bulls and he sells a lot of bull(s). :wink:

We have a Pharo bull but from a co-operators herd and he is okay. Nothing outstanding but no problems with him either. I think Kit's not feeding mineral to the bulls causes some problems down the line however. As for the co-operators herds, if we were to do this over, we would go look at the cattle the co-operator owns. I really liked the bloodlines of this bull for what we are doing and that is why we bought him. He really isn't a small bull either. I will try to get a picture of him to post here.

So don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...It is my opinion that Kit gives you something to think about; even if it is something you do NOT want to do. These big high-performance cattle have to have a stopping point some time. Maybe that time isn't here yet.
 
Ok so I looked up the Pharo site and that is a sale my folks went to a couple of years ago. They also liked the way they ran the cowboy auction. However after attending the sale and looking over the bulls one didn't come home with them. However a couple came home with some neighbors and in my own personal opinion they didn't produce outstanding offspring.
 
Faster horses said:
I think Kit's not feeding mineral to the bulls causes some problems down the line however.
Click to expand...

I'm a fan of buying roughed out bulls, but not QUITE that roughed out. I think not having adequate nutrition in the form of minerals will stunt the bulls growth and lead to reproductive problems later in life. I looked at some roughed stuff this year, and when comparing the sires (that weren't raised on the ranch) back to the sale bulls (that were), you could tell the bulls were stunted from lack of nutrition.

Personally, I want to buy a bull thats fed the way I feed my feeder calves. Grassed over the summer. In the winter, free choice hay or weighed silage, and just a bit of grain (8 or 10 lbs oats plenty) to get some energy into them. Not so much that you're burning them out for later in life, but neither are causing them nutritional problems.

Rod
 
If we want to get smaller cows, we won't get them from breeding to bigger bulls!

If you go to all forage as Kit is talking about, you have to have smaller calves and lighter weaning weight. Most won't go this route until they are forced into it.

If you like bigger cows, why not run cows that weigh 2000 pounds? Bet you'd sure get some heavy weaning weights off them big ol' hippo's! If all you want are heavy weaning weight, why not go to bigger cows? :???:

Personally, I'd rather run smaller, more efficient cows and just run more of them. I've never been to one of Kit's sales and I know he talks a good talk, as that is how he sells bulls. I know one of the guys who raises some of the red angus that sell thru' Kit's deal, and he told me, Kit will never tell you a lie. This guy doesn't sell the forage bulls, his bulls get some grain.

I'd like to go and look sometime and if it works, I'd go to the one in Harrison, this year. Me and Tumbleweed were going to go a couple years ago, but something came up and we didn't make it.

Kit is showing us all how to do something different. It might not be for all, but it sure seems to be working for some. Cussing Kit's bulls, seem to me, the same as cussing someone elses breed or breeding program. If it works for them, so be it. If you don't like it , don't do it.

Seems very similar to the people who cuss Intensive grazing. Most the ones who I've heard cuss it, don't really understand it.

Just my 2 cents worth.
 
Jinglebob said:
If you like bigger cows, why not run cows that weigh 2000 pounds? Bet you'd sure get some heavy weaning weights off them big ol' hippo's! If all you want are heavy weaning weight, why not go to bigger cows? :???:

.
Click to expand...

We've had plenty of 2000 lb cows in years past. Turns out (in my experience) that a 1400lb cow can wean a calf just as big. But an 1100 lb cow can't. At least I never saw it.
We have a neighbour that has 1400 lb cows, and he averaged 750lb weaning weights straight trough his steers last year. Who says they're not efficient? And why not have lots of those? :wink:
 
Jinglebob said:
Seems very similar to the people who cuss Intensive grazing. Most the ones who I've heard cuss it, don't really understand it.
Click to expand...

We had a neighbor that used to practice intensive grazing. His old cows just pulverised his place, and kept pushing through the wires into our pastures. One thing about it, when it snowed, we got all of our snow and all of his, too, because it blew off of his pastures and hung up on our leftover grass. :wink:
 
Soapweed said:
Jinglebob said:
Seems very similar to the people who cuss Intensive grazing. Most the ones who I've heard cuss it, don't really understand it.
Click to expand...

We had a neighbor that used to practice intensive grazing. His old cows just pulverised his place, and kept pushing through the wires into our pastures. One thing about it, when it snowed, we got all of our snow and all of his, too, because it blew off of his pastures and hung up on our leftover grass. :wink:
Click to expand...

Yup, that would be one of the poeple who don't understand it or how to properly do it. :wink:
 
I think some might be missing the boat here. A bull that is forage raised is going to have a lighter YW, but that doesn't mean that he won't grow out as well as a mature animal. Or hold together longer. We bought some bull calves in Miles City a few years ago at a purebred dispersal, and wintered the bulls at home. We fed about 6-8 lbs of grain and all the grass hay they wanted. We weighed the bulls in the spring, and they put on a couple hundred pounds that winter, and quite a bit more by turn out day. We had these bulls until they were 5-6 years old and none had to be culled for any problems. They also grew out to be just as heavy as our other "pushed" registered bulls.

The secret is to compare apples to apples. Don't compare a feedlot bull to a lightly wintered bull. On paper anyway. Doesn't necessarily mean one is better/worse than another. Frame score is an entirely different matter. That would be personal preference.
 
Just spent an hour reading the mind numbing dribble on the Pharo Cattle Co website. I personally don't understand how he would be able to give away, let alone sell those bulls. I fully believe that a five or six framed cow will raise a bigger calf that is just as efficant as a three or four framed cow. I also believe that it does not take that much more to run that 5 frame cow than it does a 3 frame. Most operations are not stocked to the max, so if you argue the point on forage intake, then you never notice the little bit more of grass that it takes to maintain the larger cow. I do feel that the 7 frame cows are to big. As for the bulls wintering better and gaining weight, there was no hard data on what they did. I can sell you a bull that is a 3 frame and has been starved, and when you turn him out and feed him a little grain of course he is going to gain weight. We all know that it takes less feed to condition a smaller animal, but the truth is it's compensatory gain. I sincerly believe that everyone deserves the freedom to do things there way, and that is what the US is all about, but the poor suckers that buy that load of crap PCC is shoveling really should check into some modern day management philosophies. :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
The thing is Pharo's cows aren't starving when they're running out-as for Ohlde his cattle are alot like Pharo's but with a whole bunch of corn jammed into them-what Kit is saying is that most operations can run more efficiently not that everyone should graze out year round. Give him a phone call sometime he's an interesting guy to visit with-it's nice to have something to look at besides the black 'corncribs' most guys are peddling.
 
Whats his saying (There's only 2 inches between the belly and the ground on a 4 frame and a 5 frame cow it does'nt weigh much and is impossible to eat.)

Saying that those 2 inches dont eat a darn thing as he say's it it's just leg bone and a little hide.The thickness can come wrapped in a 3,4,5 even 6 frame score. I have seen 3 frame cows with no muscle or volume same as 6 frame I would worry less about frame and more about thickness and volume.If the cow has no volume she will be poor at converting forage into muscle.If his cows have more volume in a 3 frame than a pencil gutted 6 frame would'nt that say it would take more to fill the tank on the 3 frame cow with lots of volume hence causeing it to actually eat more forage to fill up.

Corn is cheaper than alot of hay here so why not feed some if you can buy it right.
 
Denny said:
Whats his saying (There's only 2 inches between the belly and the ground on a 4 frame and a 5 frame cow it does'nt weigh much and is impossible to eat.)

Saying that those 2 inches dont eat a darn thing as he say's it it's just leg bone and a little hide.The thickness can come wrapped in a 3,4,5 even 6 frame score. I have seen 3 frame cows with no muscle or volume same as 6 frame I would worry less about frame and more about thickness and volume.If the cow has no volume she will be poor at converting forage into muscle.If his cows have more volume in a 3 frame than a pencil gutted 6 frame would'nt that say it would take more to fill the tank on the 3 frame cow with lots of volume hence causeing it to actually eat more forage to fill up.

Corn is cheaper than alot of hay here so why not feed some if you can buy it right.
Click to expand...

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Well said Denny!

Have a good one,

lazy ace
 
Northern Rancher said:
The thing is Pharo's cows aren't starving when they're running out-as for Ohlde his cattle are alot like Pharo's but with a whole bunch of corn jammed into them-what Kit is saying is that most operations can run more efficiently not that everyone should graze out year round. Give him a phone call sometime he's an interesting guy to visit with-it's nice to have something to look at besides the black 'corncribs' most guys are peddling.
Click to expand...

I talked to Tim last night and up until they got snow last week his cows have been out picking at least that's what he said.I do know this if Tim's cows are so corn fed why does Kit use them for pictures in his sale catalog.I don't believe in over feeding my cattle but I don't want them to starve either...a little corn is'nt a bad thing..
 
Northern Rancher said:
Yeah but alot of corn is!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

I agree I have some cows that were fed ALOT of corn bought them as bred heifers a month before calveing was 24 of them they are 6 now and only have about 10 left their feet went to hell.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top