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Question for the "Straight Black Commercial Cow/Calf Ma

Because your goal is pure black replacement quality heifers?

Because you raise black angus bulls?
 
Our angus bulls have been easier to handle than our horned herefords ever were. Still getting our herd to all black, so have no need for rwf bulls.
 
Well speaking as a man with quite a few black cows who does run Hereford bulls-it takes alot of looking to find Hereford bulls good enough to breed black cows to to raise baldie females. There is a plethora of big BW-bigger framed Hereford bulls to make crackerjack baldie steers with but to find a good SOUND cowmaker is another story. I've been lucky enough to use a couple A'I over the years and I have high hopes for the new Genex bull. The black baldie cow is still the best thing going in the cattle business as far as i'm concerned if the right stuff is used in her manufacture.
 
DJL said:
Our angus bulls have been easier to handle than our horned herefords ever were. Still getting our herd to all black, so have no need for rwf bulls.
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I'd sure like to know where you were getting those honky hereford bulls... I still get week in the knees walking behind a black animal.
 
Northern Rancher said:
it takes alot of looking to find Hereford bulls good enough to breed black cows to to raise baldie females. There is a plethora of big BW-bigger framed Hereford bulls to make crackerjack baldie steers with but to find a good SOUND cowmaker is another story.
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thank you - that is the kind of stuff I want to know

do you have a link to the "Genex bull"
 
We had horned bulls from a couple different local breeders, then switched to polled, and found them easy to handle since they were handled with a horse and weren't five gallon bucket bulls, but one too many spring storms dictated a departure from straight herefords, and I've always been an fan of black baldys, but hubby is liking them black, all black. I don't know at this point whether we will go with hereford bulls again. There aren't a lot of hereford breeders left around here, I don't think. I know I have to compete with some of them to buy angus bulls, which really frustrates me.
 
Northern Rancher - you must be talking about the 20P bull. He has me semi interested. I would like to find a good son of 20P out of the right canadian blooded cow. Too much L1 on the top side of his pedigree and I have seen some 552 stuff out of L1 cows I didn't care for at all. I think that bull would go over well in the states. He's got some good breeding in him. A couple shots of Andy (which I absolutely love - used three sons of him), Centennial (another bull that was a descent cowmaker - used a son of the old bull), 8020 (maternal sire of my current herd bull and sire of one of my heifer bulls - good females).

Do you have any calves by him?
 
I don't meet the qualification to reply to your question ( I am a seed stock Angus producer). But, I think I am pretty objective. When I evaluate my neighbors straight horned herfords the one thing that I notice is the uniformly poor udders and teets. If my cows were commercial and I wanted to produce baldie heifers I would be concerned how much udder quality I would lose and if I would add any calving difficulty.
 
I sure enjoy not having to dehorn.
As a rule the poled herford bulls aren't as good as the horned. particulary in the rear end.

If I found some bulls that I like with out travling all over the country, I'd put some herford influence back in my herd, thats where they started.
 
I am putting a Hereford in with some straight black cows next spring.He's actually 1/2 hereford 1/2 shorthorn I AI'ed an old shorthorn cow I have to a horned hereford.I have alot of daughter's and grand daughters of the cow and they are all real productive.It may seem odd to do this but I figure it's no differet than breeding cross bred cows to straight bred bulls I'm just doing it backwards.I want replacement heifers from this cross but I did'nt want more than a 1/4 shorthorn in them trying to regulate the Roan color the 1/2 bloods carry.

The biggest problem with useing a hereford bull on baldy type cows and crossbreds is the redneck or hereford looking calves they sort them off at the sale and generally bring 10 to 15 cents less than the black hided calves thats why we quit useing hereford bull's 10 years ago.Now we have alot of straight black cows so we can try it again.

The baldy and redneck cows we have from our 1st hereford bull are 10 years old this year all have nice tight udders with small teats. We only had 10 of them but this year we culled one of them all the rest have calves on them and are doing fine.
 
When I evaluate my neighbors straight horned herfords the one thing that I notice is the uniformly poor udders and teets.
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I have bred most of that out of my Herefords.
Rule #2 Get the calf up and sucking. If I touch it before branding other than to tag it I will not keep it for a bull or replacement heifer.

Hardass Cattle Company
Doug Thorson
Owner,Operator and chief hardass
 
Doug I had the unique experience of being able to look for my bull without any pedigree prejudices-I reserve those for my Angus cattle-EXT lol. As far as 20P goes I'd consider Centennial to be the weak link in his pedigree I'm glad he's quite aways back-Centennials were probably a frame score too high and a condition score too low for my liking. Fraser's graze out all winter so they got sorted pretty quick but the ones left are worthy cows. I had quite a few Lad calves out of heifers this year-he's actually working as good or better than expected so far. Fraser's should have some daughters calving to him in spring. they have a bull calf out of a Bar Pipe Brigadier daughter in their sale this year. As for dehorning you won't get many horns out of Angus cows anyway.
 
I have a bit more time to fully reply now.
Speaking for the people that I have tried to sell bulls to the biggest reason not to have a Hereford bull is the rednecks that Denny mentioned. Most cows in this country have some other influence and the red gene will come out in maybe 3-5%. It takes a lot of pounds to get people convinced that selling them for less makes it worthwile. At least the same % will have horns out of my horned herefords.
BW is another factor for some but the main other reason is it is easier to buy Angus. The selection is way bigger and the calves are easy to sell. It also makes cows easy to sell.
All that being said I am still a firm beliver in crossbreeding. I know a lot of other seedstock producers will disagree but I swear by the baldie cow. 50 years ago people realized that putting a black bull on a hereford cow made the best females in the world. There are a lot of people who forgot or just got lazy(extra work to run 2 herds) but I think the day will come when people will realize again that the baldie cow is the best the world has to offer.
Heterosis is the only thing free left in this business.
 
SHORTSTUFF said:
I sure enjoy not having to dehorn.
As a rule the poled herford bulls aren't as good as the horned. particulary in the rear end.

If I found some bulls that I like with out travling all over the country, I'd put some herford influence back in my herd, thats where they started.
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I agree Shortstuff--While I think the baldy cow is the best there is- it sure is nice not to have to do any dehorning--especially as branding crews get harder to find...And I don't know anybody who even raises polled hereford bulls in the area anymore- let alone good ones...

The biggest problem I had with running some hereford cows to make baldy calves was cancer eye...
 
I AM GLAD SOMEONE STARTED THIS THREAD AS A YOUNG CATTLE PRODUCER GETTING STARTED IN THE BUSINESS IT GIVES ME GOOD DIRECTION AND IT ALSO CONFIRMS WHAT I HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT THE HERFORDS AND CROSSING WITH ANGUS. I AM GLAD TO HEAR THAT THERE ARE SOME SEED STOCK PRODUCERS THAT WILL TAKE A KNIFE TO A LOWER END BULL. THERE IS A FEW PRODUCERS THAT TRY TO SELL ALL THE BULLS BORN AS GOOD BULLS. I GUESS WHEN THE TOP IS OUT OF THE PEN THE BOTTOM DOESN'T LOOK SO BAD.
 
Cancer eye, sunburned udders, turnip tits, saleability and the lack of heterosis are the biggest reasons for leaving herefords. As far as cows, they were easy to handle, so sometimes I miss that, but we had to handle them a lot more than the blacks, and when the snow is deep and the black calves are up sucking (heterosis at work) while the rwf lay there freezing, I don't miss 'em a bit. The breeder we used to buy our hereford bulls from is happy if his calves get up and suck in under two hours, but we didn't know that until years later when we moved next door to him and had to check heifers. That simply won't do! When our herd is absolutely black, then we'll think about crossing again, maybe.
 
DJL don't change the breed change the breeder. Douglas Lake calves more cattle than anubody out on grass unobserved-Hereford and Baldie cows are what they run. The only bad thing about that is they're hard to outbid at the sale I buy at lol. It's getting to be alot of black cattle are raised under glass too-nothing is tougher on abreed than popularity. like them both but like them combined even better.
 
We bought from a couple of different horned breeders, then went polled, and I'd have put those bulls up against any horned bull for butts, but then switched to angus for the crossbred benefit and pigment, etc, and never looked back. Had to drag the father in law along kicking and screaming, but the crappy pay for straight herefords compared to our black crosses convinced him. I notice now that we are running separate outfits that he still hasn't gone back hereford, even though he was diehard hereford. Eventually we may go back to a hereford bull, but I remember all too well the headaches gathering them. The polled bulls and one set of horned would travel along good, but the others were a royal pain in the butt. Policy here for bulls is go on the fight when were moving you and you're outa here, so it got expensive shipping young bulls to the can. This country is just too rough to spend much time trying to get sulled up bulls out of a creek or every bush patch along the way.
After working the feedlot and sewing up a ton of prolapses, I'm not getting to be any more of a hereford fan. All prolapses there aren't all rwf, but the majority are.
 

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