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shaver beef blend

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peacecountry

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hi s everybody pretty new at this . thougt i would ask if anyone has heard of shaver beef blend cattle. bought a few last fall and am impressed. cant seem to find any would like to buy another bull. beacuse the one I got is old.
 
i heard they were bred to finish on grass. the breed was developed by a guy named don shaver in ontario. they have no angus or herford or simmental or charlois or limo or any common breeds so they make a good outcross with lots of hybrid viger. mine calved like elk and grew like weeds. a class of their own against my blk cows
 
Well I'm not much help here but if I'm not mistaken, they were bred on a farm about 25 or 30 miles east of us not far from Milverton. I don't think the guy that had them is there anymore as I remember something about a sale some time ago.

I wasn't much into the cow/calf end of the cattle business back then so hadn't much interest in what he was doing. But I'll try to find out a bit more about what became of him/them from some acquaintances over that way.
 
Welcome to the board peacecountry! Nice to have a neighbour on here!
 
A fella who bought a part of our cowherd 8 years ago has used Shaver bulls on them. I believe Red Poll and Shorthorn are two of the breeds that make up the composite. Would make sense as this fellow has many mottled colour calves that looked like Shorthorns (Off straightbred Hereford cows and a solid red Shaver bull). He gets docked at the sale barn of course, but they are good growthy calves.

I should add that he sources his bulls from a Shaver Beefblend breeder in Brandon, MB. Don't remember the name. They have an ad occasionally in the Manitoba Co-operator and Western Producer.
 
Congrats Saints! There is a herd of shaver's at Brandon MB, I saw some decent cattle there. Fellows name is Brian Harper, I have a phone # if you want.
 
One of the issues I have with the smaller/composite breed is the gene pool and finding bulls in quantity. Most any beef breed can be bred up to do what you want. The large the gene pool should make it easier to take it that way,shouldn't it.?
 
Northern Rancher said:
Theyt have Lincoln Red's in them also. Shaver's made fortunes inn the chicken breeding business-Shaver Starcross etc.
Click to expand...

I was mistaken. You right NR. It's Lincoln Red in them, not Red Poll.
 
I'm intrigued as to the components of this composite - I see one source that claims it is a 9 breed composite which doesn't include Angus, Hereford, Friesian or Simmental. We could have a guess the breed make up competition :D I'm not sure that I could think of 9 breeds likely to be in there.
The website page http://www.shaverbeef.co.nz/content.php?article.7 contained some surprising reading for me indicating that the more breeds you have in a composite the higher the heterosis. Doesn't that indicate that some of the severely mongrelized cows that are products of a rancher changing breeds every year should have the highest levels of heterosis out there? If that makes a good composite wouldn't you expect the highly mongrelized scrub cow to turn in the best calves every year too :?
 
Grassfarmer said:
I'm intrigued as to the components of this composite - I see one source that claims it is a 9 breed composite which doesn't include Angus, Hereford, Friesian or Simmental. We could have a guess the breed make up competition :D I'm not sure that I could think of 9 breeds likely to be in there.
The website page http://www.shaverbeef.co.nz/content.php?article.7 contained some surprising reading for me indicating that the more breeds you have in a composite the higher the heterosis. Doesn't that indicate that some of the severely mongrelized cows that are products of a rancher changing breeds every year should have the highest levels of heterosis out there? If that makes a good composite wouldn't you expect the highly mongrelized scrub cow to turn in the best calves every year too :?
Click to expand...

A family tree can produce good or bad traits whether it branches or not.


In all animals including us. :wink:
 
I question the notion that the Shaver Beefblend was developed for grass finishing, since I can remember the first bull I saw being a Frame Score 10, and weighing 3000lbs. He was in an ABS directory when I took my AI course some 16 years ago-ish. :lol:
 
thanks everybody for the imfo.moosemen is only about 15 hours away from here.have some family there. silver what part of bc do you hale in hows the pine beetle treeting you.
 

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