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Ultrasound on Galloway Bulls

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PureCountry

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Rkaiser spent the day at Olds College with Rod Wendorff ultrasounding our bulls for our sale April 17th. Bulls are on a "mostly" forage ration this year. It was 50% silage, 30% straw and 20%DDG. It was supposed to be 70/30 silage/hay, but with hay prices through the roof and it's in short supply, we had to work with the college to make something fit. We've now gone to 70% silage, 15% straw, 15% DDG.

I'm pretty happy with the bulls so far, and these numbers look good. Marbling is exceptional.

Marbling Backfat Ribeye/inch Ribeye/cm Ribeye/cwt Yield

4.00 2.38 8.63 55.68 0.95 63.33
4.75 1.55 10.29 66.39 1.08 65.53
4.70 2.86 9.30 59.98 1.07 63.38
4.40 2.00 9.87 63.67 1.02 64.73
4.95 2.86 10.99 70.89 1.07 64.76
4.60 2.38 10.92 70.47 1.23 65.19
4.55 1.55 10.07 64.94 1.09 65.34
 
Sounds like great results.
I learned that one should shoot for 2 sq iches of ribeye for 100 pounds of carcass weight. Looks like you have done that. I appreciate your marbling scores without much if any grain. Some of the lighter muscled cattle do not improve marbling much better with grain.
Do you think the AI companies wold be interested in real carcass data like these?
 
Those are interesting figures PC, I've never taken that data off our cattle. I compared your results to those in the catalog I just got from Rawes, the biggest Charolais breeders in Canada. On marbling yours are all well over 4, probably 75% of the Charolais are under 4. Their ribeye/cwt lowest scores are the same as yours although they average a little higher (probably 115+). The lean meat yield is the one that surprised me - where yours are 63-65% the Charolais are mainly 64-66%. Considering the perceived difference between Charolais and Galloway - a meat machine versus a low input cow breed when you look at the carcass results they really aren't so far apart under the skin. The Rawes cattle are considered to be very high carcass quality cattle so I think your Galloways are showing up fantastic in contrast.
 
Rawes does not raise carcass cattle by Charolais standards. Thye mostely raise performance spread and calving ease bulls. for a carcass bull look at a bull like Curtis Wallace or Sparrows Madrid.
I like Rawes ranches bulls and recommend them highly. Some unique calving ease pedigrees and no nonsense 2 year old bulls ready to work: www.rawesranches.com/.
 
VLS_GUY said:
Rawes does not raise carcass cattle by Charolais standards. Thye mostely raise performance spread and calving ease bulls. for a carcass bull look at a bull like Curtis Wallace or Sparrows Madrid.
I like Rawes ranches bulls and recommend them highly. Some unique calving ease pedigrees and no nonsense 2 year old bulls ready to work: www.rawesranches.com/.
Click to expand...

OK I guess I bought into the pre-sale BS by the auctioneer then - they always claim that they are the highest yielding, highest carcase cattle out there. We bought some that had very good characteristics - muscling and yield would be way higher than the original type of Charolais out of France.
We only bought Charolais from them so have nothing to compare them to but I found the best were excellent but we had some duds too - on the fertility/feet front. Very good on the calving and growth fronts though. I much prefer the ones with their own bloodlines through and through. They had a spell there where they used a lot of bought in sires and I wonder if that's where our problems came from?
 
Grassfarmer,

Rawes Ranches has good carcass cattle for a reasonable birth weight. John Rawes learned his lesson a few years ago about what his customers want for birth weight and feet. One particular bull caused his feet problems and he is nowhere in the pedigrees of the bulls sold in the past few years. John trimmed them at the knee. I do not think he would sell a bull he would not use himself.
This herd is based mostly on cows graded up from Full French, some Buddy Cobb type cattle, Polled Paul, and some influence from Wienks and Eatons. The cattle are outcross to 90% of the Charolais in the U.S. and are designed to cross with BWF and Continental cross cows with a minimum of management problems to produce a consistent calf crop that will do well in the lot and on the rail. In short they are all around good cattle. This is borne out by the bull sale average of over $ 4,000.
This a bull sale to commercial stockmen not purebred breeders, so don't expect hype from them trying to sell a herd sire as the second coming.
If you ask about their herd sires they will tell you the truth about them-the good and bad. We have resold bulls from them for more money than we purchased them for a few years later so I guess the calves must have impressed somebody and the bull looked like he could still breed cows.
:wink:
In this catalog are a few bulls that have LT Rio Blanco levels of performance with out the hype. If I was in the United States looking for an outcross Charolais bull this is where I would look.
I believe they do have some relationship with Laura's Lean and likely they can market calves into this program. I will ask the family if this is the case.
 
Dylan Biggs said:
Are there any Navigator's in that group?
Click to expand...
2 of them, both black bulls. One is a linebred bull. We mated Navigator to his paternal sister, our 22N cow we got from Randy. She's one of our fanciest cows, but she's alot more than a pretty face. Milks great, perfect udder, real quiet and holds her condition good too.

These 2 Navigator sons are 3rd from the top, and last on the list. I'll paste their numbers here:

Marb B.fat Rib/in Rib/cm Rib/cwt LMY
98U - 4.70 2.86 9.30 59.98 1.07 63.38
199U - 4.55 1.55 10.07 64.94 1.09 65.34 This is the linebred bull

But really, this is what I expect when we mate bulls like this:
Navigator_Sept_2008.jpg


To cows like this:
KTK_44K_Sept_2008.jpg


The ironic part is that we've known for years that Galloways did this. Olds College and their Steer-A-Year Trials have been proving it for 24 years. And yet, people look at the long hair and look the other way. Don't understand why any commercial cattleman North of Wyoming wouldn't want a touch more hair on their cows, especially when we have the data to prove that they wouldn't sacrifice anything on carcass traits. Problem for me is still the small gene pool, and trying to find cattle that work like I want 'em to. For the next while we'll be using home-raised bulls, until something changes my mind again. :wink:
 
In reading of factual information data like this for sevral years going back as far as the 50s. That data came from Black Galloway herds in Montanna. A few of those herds had productions sales every year like the world famous Angus herds do today in Mt and Dakotas.
The very finest Angus herds are from Mt., and Dakotas now.

A BLK Galloway bull data (I still have) was sired by a Galloway Bull form Bozeman Mt. When shown and scanned He had the largest ribeye at 17.5 inches and weighed 1600 pounds that was big for a 15 month old bull in 1968. Actually some the the very best oldest Galloways herds were in Nebraska and western Kansas before that. I also noticed some of the best Angus herds today are also from those states.
 
Galloway breeders,

If you had to design a synthetic or composite breed using Galloway what breeds would you incorporate? What is your opinions of the U of A synthetic?
Also beyond the Welsh Black being horned for the most part what are the big differences between Galloways and Welsh Black? I have herd that the WB is better growing and milking is this true?
 
VLS_GUY said:
Galloway breeders,

If you had to design a synthetic or composite breed using Galloway what breeds would you incorporate? What is your opinions of the U of A synthetic?
Also beyond the Welsh Black being horned for the most part what are the big differences between Galloways and Welsh Black? I have herd that the WB is better growing and milking is this true?
Click to expand...

I'm no longer a Galloway breeder but I grew up with them in their homeland so hopefully that nearly qualifies me to comment :) I wouldn't be interested in designing a composite or synthetic breed using Galloway but the best thing to do with them in my opinion was breed "blue greys" by crossing them to the proper Cumberland white shorthorn bull. This cross bred cow was the staple of upland areas of the UK for generations and would be comparable to the baldie cross in North America. The blue grey did everything a good F1 should - would outlast and outperform her Galloway mother on the highest hills and turn in a superb hereford or later Charolais x calf. Unfortunately both breeds screwed up - the Cumberland dairy shorthorn went out of fashion in the clamor for higher output dairy cattle and the ones that were thereafter moved onto Galloway hill farms and bred pure as a new breed "whitebred shorthorns" quickly lost the qualities of the former breed and turned into a white Galloway with no milk.
The Galloways went through a terrible spell from the late 1960s to the early 80s where they were selected for the show ring traits of pretty heads and ears. The best Galloways were the old "hammer heads" a long headed, bigger powerful strain of cows that were lost to this show ring craze. By the 80s they realised the breed was in trouble - terribly slow growth characteristics and poor milk were just about breed type. Since the 80's the Galloways in the UK have got back into more growth through Canadian genetics but I don't think they will ever regain their former position. Last I heard there were more registrations in Germany than in Scotland.
 
Grassfarmer,

I was always meaning to ask what you think of the Snowlander influence. Can you take a Luing with Snowlander influence and paper them in the UK? It would seem to me that would offer an alternative to the UK breeders looking for a return to first principals.
 
I'm not sure I'd try to breed a composite with Galloway. What would be the purpose? Once you had them stabilized after many, many, many, many, many years, you'd be bored and look at crossing them with something again. :wink:

As for the U of A synthetic, I think they were and are the best commercial cows in this part of the world. The Galloway sired steers that have done so good for so many years at Olds College Trials were out of U of A "Ranch Cows". They were little fuzzballs that milked like fools and stayed fat year round. The U of A Ranch has very little Galloway influence left, since they've been using straight Angus and home-raised composite bulls for so long, but they're program is still admirable. They limit feed cows and make them graze alot through the winter. It's a very interesting day to spend touring around there.

As for Welsh Blacks, they are bigger, growthier, and milkier. Are they as hardy and efficient, I don't know. I've never seen Welsh cows pushed to graze year round so I can't say. Rkaiser bale grazes and such, and they do fine. In my opinion, they're good cattle, just with different strengths than the Galloway. In general I think the Galloway could be a little tougher cow, and the Welsh have more performance. Different strokes....
 
VLS_GUY said:
Grassfarmer,

I was always meaning to ask what you think of the Snowlander influence. Can you take a Luing with Snowlander influence and paper them in the UK? It would seem to me that would offer an alternative to the UK breeders looking for a return to first principals.
Click to expand...

The Snowlander seems to have been a good influence in Canada - it added in genetics that were more adapted to Canadian conditions plus polled genetics. The cattle registered here with some snowlander influence would be accepted in the UK breed I believe - the key thing is we have very little snowlander influence left. The %s are quite diminished and we have no way to increase it. There are only a couple of UK guys looking to return to first principles, the rest are all tied up in the bigger, faster, more limo type craze.
Actually the herd book is still open in the UK - always has been - to grade up subject to inspection of foundation stock. I have a friend who sourced an outstanding group of Shorthorn/Highland cows that offered great potential to grade up and take the breed back to a truer type - unfortunately the powers that be changed the rules on him so they could no longer qualify :mad:
Nothing like a breed getting caught up in a popularity cycle to start messing up the breed!
 

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