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What breed (s) do you run and why?

the majority of my cattle are....

  • registered

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  • straight bred

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  • commercial

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  • A combination of above options

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  • I dont have any cows!

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  • Total voters
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We run registered black angus. I guess mainly because that's what we had at home although then we crossed them with shorthorns. Right now there is a big switch to angus in this country. When I started our herd 9 years ago everyone around us said they couldn't take the heat and humidity here. They seem to do okay. The majority of the bulls used on commercial cows are now charolais and black angus. AS soon as I can take some time to learn how to post pictures I'll put a few photos up.
 
White Charolais cows which would be purebred if we kept up the papers, because we've been breeding them for 22 years. We use Charolais bulls on the best cows that we want to retain heifers from, and use Limo bulls on the rest. The cow herd is mainly white, and the calves are tan and chunky. They work for us.

We know the blacks are trendy right now, but we've been in this business long enough to know that things never stay the same, and if you start chasing the trends you will never catch up. A good cow herd takes far too long to develop than you can accomplish in the few short years that a trend runs it's course. You have to look at it as a long term project, and many spend a lifetime working to develop the herd to the point that they are satisfied with it.

We've seen it go from short blocky cattle, to long tall thin racey ones, and from red white face to tan to red and black. It just goes round and round. Someone could go on national TV tomorrow and say that beef is too fat, and no one should eat it, and you can be sure that the cattle would change again!

Over the long haul, no matter what the breed, it's best to go with cattle that work in your area, under your pasture conditions, and that are trouble free and moderate. Middle of the road cows can produce calves for just about any market if you pick the right bull.
 
We run black angus and black baldy cows, for their hardiness, mothering ability, moderate size, and ease of handling. We used to run Herefords, so it was an easy switch to make, giving us the hybrid vigor that we very much needed. Also got away from white skin on the udders that sunburn, white faces which seem to have more than their share of eye trouble. I always hated chasing horned bulls around half the summer only to spend all spring knocking the horns off of the calves. :?
 
I currently run a commercial herd of straightbred Angus, baldies and Angus/Shorthorn cross cows. The straightbreds are crossed to my PB Shorthorn bulls to retain heifers. The Angus/Shorthorn crosses are proving themselves to be about the best crossbred cows going: hardy, fast growing, easy keeping medium framed animals. I like to cross these guys to Simm bulls for the terminal cross.

I also started a small purebred Shorthorn operation a couple years ago. I chose Shorthorn because I think they'll take the place of Angus in a few years (perhaps long years) due to their easy keeping, net feed efficiency and ability to grade. Eventually, I'll probably get away from the commercial herd all together.

Next on my hitlist of things to try are Welsh Black/Shorthorn crosses. I think they'll prove to be superior to the Angus cross in almost all respects, but thats only theory right now.

Rod
 
I run mostly Limo cows some tan chars and a few red angus. I use Limo bulls plus one char which I just replaced with a simmental. I got moderate sized cows which seem to do well in our area. My calves end up being fairly uniform in size and color which I think helps come sale day. As long as your producing healthy growthly , easy fleshing calves you will always have a market for them nomatter what color they are :wink:
 
We run both PB and commercial cowherds with Polled Hereford cows as our base breed. These cattle are hardy, practicle, handle easy and are a complimentary cross to just about every breed going. To those naysayers about Hereford faults I'd like to point out that ours is a 3rd generation herd that has been raised and culled under practical shortgrass ranch conditions and that we see far fewer problems with our cattle than a lot of our neighbours! I know that we are quicker to cull on problems than many! Our commercial cows are crossed with Angus to produce baldie replacement females (this market has come back nicely after being hit hard by BSE) as well as market steers. We also keep quite a few baldie and brocklefaces c ows that we breed back Hereford.........nothing against terminal crosses but our customers want a solid British base female that they can crossbreed in their own programs. We strongly feel that our commercial cattle experience keeps the PB herd anchored to reality and helps avoid the wrecks that chasing rainbows seem to inflict on some PB breeders!
 
Here a commercial black angus herd that spring calves is run and a commercial red angus fall calving herd is also found.
 
Angus-Horned Hereford and South Devon-we've got some registered Angus cows but don't worry bout them too much-Megan has a few purebred South Devon cows. Ohh and don't forget the buckers lol.
 
Angus x Simm cows with Maine or % Maine composite bulls. We're raising show calves and this gives us the frame, bone, muscle and hair needed for the show ring. We bred two 2005 State Champions and got Champion or Reserve at several other shows as well. It's working.

We've got a show this weekend - I'll try to get some pictures to post here. You'll forget all about your straight English breeds. :wink:
 
CattleRMe said:
Here a commercial black angus herd that spring calves is run and a commercial red angus fall calving herd is also found.
Click to expand...

I've always thought that if I ever got into a purebred deal, I'd look pretty hard at Red Angus. What do you think about the differences of the two?
 
Sandhusker said:
CattleRMe said:
Here a commercial black angus herd that spring calves is run and a commercial red angus fall calving herd is also found.
Click to expand...

I've always thought that if I ever got into a purebred deal, I'd look pretty hard at Red Angus. What do you think about the differences of the two?
Click to expand...

Go red. BRG and Turkey Track got some good ones too. Never seen Andy's but I hear he's got some good ones too. Hope I ain't leaving anybody out?
 
We run commerical Angus and Commerical Red Angus (Mostly 3/4 red Angus 1/4 herf). If I was to go pure bred (I won't probably) I would go with Red Angus as I think they are a breed association with a lot of ideas that mesh with my beliefs and I have seen more Red Angus I like than Black...

We used to run Maine% bulls. The calves were generally very nice and the heifers out of the 50% bulls tended to make real nice momma cow except for being on the large side. They had some nice points but over all I prefer the straight british cattle, AIing to British bulls and cleaning up with a composite bull. At least that is the plan once the herd closer to its goal.
 
Sandhusker said:
Angus x Simm cows with Maine or % Maine composite bulls. We're raising show calves and this gives us the frame, bone, muscle and hair needed for the show ring. We bred two 2005 State Champions and got Champion or Reserve at several other shows as well. It's working.

We've got a show this weekend - I'll try to get some pictures to post here. You'll forget all about your straight English breeds. :wink:
Click to expand...

M e ont me brits are ole chums. *I sez in an english accent* lol. At the shwo in s'toon supreme cow was Reg. Angus... lol
 
We have a mixed commerical herd that consists of mostly angus genetics. There are a few of those big eared white monsters in there tooo :roll: . Then we have a herd of PB Black Angus that we take pride in. And also cant forget about the buckers!! :wink: We run 10 Limo bulls with the comericial herd and are trying a Maine X Angus bull this year as well.
 
We have a herd of Registered Red Angus cows that calve in May/June. We are also building a herd of Fall and Spring calving cows. The fall and spring herds are being developed off of embryos from donor cows out of the May/June herd.

We also have a commercial Red Angus herd that calves in May/June.
 
I run commerical angus cows, both red and black. I breed the best mama cows to angus bulls to produce heifers and the breed the rest of the cows to char bulls. I calve both spring and fall.
 
We have a Registered Red Angus herd and a few Reg. Black Angus (Like the Reds better). We also have a few registered South Devon cows and Red Angus x So. Devon commercial cows that we breed to both Red and Black Angus. We like the So. Devon x Red Angus calves real well and the Red Angus herd the best.
 
Sandhusker said:
CattleRMe said:
Here a commercial black angus herd that spring calves is run and a commercial red angus fall calving herd is also found.
Click to expand...

I've always thought that if I ever got into a purebred deal, I'd look pretty hard at Red Angus. What do you think about the differences of the two?
Click to expand...

The reason the fall calving herd is red angus is my Dad is one to always be looking for a deal and knows a guy a lot like him but out and about in the cattle world more statewide. So three years ago or almost his friend found these red angus cows in Colorado with nice calves on their sides that needed sold due to no grass. My Dad could buy them cheeper then the blacks in this area so decided the fall calving herd could consist of red cows. We do put black angus bulls on the red cows also.

The problem here is as anyone in the sandhills know run some red angus through the salebarn and then some black the same frame same weight and most of the time the blacks will bring more.

What we did this year is held our peewee's from the spring calving herd which were black and sold them with the fall calves about two weeks ago. My dad went to the salebard insisted they not sort by color and we are very pleased with the results. The red cows had a few black calves and then with the spring calves thrown in it made a nice package and they went well.

Honestly we see no difference in the red and blacks until it comes sale time. I think anyone knows for some reason blacks are more popular in this area. They also tend to want a straight color herd more too. However Dad mixing them seemed to work better then when they sort them by color. I guess if the salebarn wants business bad enough they'll do what the seller wants.
 

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