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Soapweed

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
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Location
northern Nebraska Sandhills
Theheavylotisgettingfull.jpg

The heavy lot is getting full, these three pictures from left to right
Expectantmotherstimebombreadytodeto.jpg

Expectant mothers
Timebombabouttodetonate.jpg

Time bomb about to detonate
Loadingcake.jpg

Loading cake
Proteincubescake.jpg

Protein cubes (cake)
Meanwhilebackoutontherestoftheranch.jpg

Meanwhile back out on the rest of the ranch
Newbaby.jpg

New baby
ThebabysdaddyaTarentaise.jpg

The baby's daddy, a Tarentaise (just an experiment on 25
second-calf heifers)
 
More great pics Soapweed. Question, why Tarentaise? They had some of them at Havre at the experiment station for years in a genetics study. I can't remember exactly but it seems like the geneticists decided that they probably milk too much for that area as mother cows but I think they were straight breds, maybe 1/2 or 1/4 would infuse enough milk or are you trying them more just for heterosis? Just thoughts
 
SW

Quite a few years ago, I and a neighbor got some terentaise bulls. We ended up keeping the heifers for cows. Mine were red angus cross and they were dandy's! REAL GOOD MOTHERS! The puregreds were just too good at milking and we had a high open end on them as they went along. 1/2 blood wasn't too bad. A 1/4 blood was probably better. The heifer calves sure looked good in the fall but the steer calves were pin butted.

The other guy started with part blood bulls and he had better calves than I did.

My 2 cents worth! :wink:
 
Soapweed - I have been considering a tarentaise cross experiment also. Where did you get your bull?
 
Looks like things are running according to plan at your outfit, Soapweed. Nice country, nice cows, nice everything I see...except maybe the Tarentaise bull... :wink:

I do know that people who have % Tarentaise just love them. When we were trying to crossbreed in 1980, we looked into the Tarentaise. The bulls were ok, but the heifer calves we saw looked just like little jersey milk cows. The better half shook his head at that, so we didn't go that route. Our relatives in Wyoming had some and swore by them, but they fed real good too. Those cows never knew a bad day, and they didn't have very many cows. Mieke Brothers at Kaycee, Wyoming is who the Tarentaise cattle in that country came from.
 
I started out in the business sixteen years ago using terentaise bulls. My dad had bought 15 registered bred terentaise cows form a purebred breeder a year earlier. We fed the bull calves over the next winter and I picked out two good looking ones in exchange for labor. I had 40 black angus replacements I turned the bulls in on.

I did have to pull some calves out of those heifers, some had a real hard time getting the head started out. The calves were real go getters once on the ground. Some calves were a little brown colored but turned coal black by fall, only got a few light colored reds. We got rid of any of the bulls that looked like they had a sqaure blocky head and that made alot of diferance. No we didn't use EPD's :lol:

I kept every heifer calf out of that cross 1/2 and 1/2 and I bred them black. They were super momma's as were their daughters1/4 and 3/4 angus. Always matured early and bred back easy had good udders (a few the heaviest milkers developed bad tits later in life) and were easy keepers. I still have alot of them.

As for the pure breeds they were a pain in the butt some had bad temperments ,real stubborn, hard to work in the corrals, and around a horse some could get pretty goofy.They would kind of fall to pieces after calving too. The pure breeds usally had too much milk also.

Just a few thoughts
 
Tarentaise (much like all breeds) vary widely from ranch to ranch. it's hard to make a judgement on a breed based on calves from inferior breeding stock.
 
Great pics as usual, Soapweed! :D

I was wondering if you ever tried to feed DDG with your caker outfit? Gal who works at my local feed store says her hubby feeds some straight DDG on the ground with a caker at the ranch where he works. The straight DDG sometimes bridges up and doesn't feed out good. Got to knock it around a bit to keep it flowing. Looks to me like there would be quite a bit of waste feeding DDG on the ground due to wind and trampling.

I feed a 50/50 mix of cracked corn/DDG to my calves in bunks via 5 gal bucket method. The cracked corn adds some body to the DDG so it doesn't blow away so bad in the wind. The DDG cuts the dust down to 0 in the cracked corn.
 
Aero said:
Tarentaise (much like all breeds) vary widely from ranch to ranch. it's hard to make a judgement on a breed based on calves from inferior breeding stock.
Click to expand...

Aero this is true but everybody has to start somewhere.

I don't know how good the quality of the purebreeds was that we started with.We got them from a local breeder and they were new to this country at the time. They crossed real good with our angus cows (maybe not the best in the world) :shock:

I think it was a good mix (hybrid vigor) I guess
 
I've definitely seen some good calves come in off those tarentaise/angus cross cows my neighbor has...Last fall I saw a 650+ lb calf come off a cow that he knew was at least 18 years old because he hadn't used that brand for that long...
 
cattle2400.jpg

these calves were out of a tarentaise bull and some black and baldie cows I had.

I used tarentaise bulls for quite a few years and liked the calves and the cows that I ended up with. The bulls would really cover the pastures, the calves when they were born would get right up and sometimes be trying to buck and play before they were dried off. The cows had nice udders and probably averaged around 1100 pounds. I finaly quit them because the higher the percentage of tarentaise that showed up in them the more resistance I ran in to from the buyers when I went to sell them.
 
Great looking calves - - - what let to the buyers resistance???

I use the bucket method of feeding anytime I get strange or roudy animals - - - - if that does not settel them it is time to go to market with them. I even keep a few cubs with me at all times when the pasture is great just to keep the attitude correct.
 
Last spring, a friend wanted me to look at his Tarentaise bulls. I was really impressed with his cow herd, and the excellent udders that they all seemed to have. I ended up buying a couple bulls that would work on heifers. Would have bought more, but his other bulls were of larger birthweights, and recommended only for older cows. My original intent was to use them as clean-up bulls after we AI'd 200 Angus heifers to the Angus bull, Bextor.

I ended up having enough straight Angus bulls to use as clean-up bulls, but had 25 first calf Angus heifers and a few older Red cows that I ran the two Tarentaise bulls with. It is just an experiment, but I will probably keep a few F1 Angus x Tarentaise heifers to turn into future cows. Time will tell.

I do have a couple pretty good Tarentaise bulls, suitable for breeding to heifers, that are for sale at this time. :wink:
 
cattle1400.jpg

These were some of 80 head of heifers I had kept for replacements and bred in 2002 that were out of high percentage tarentaise cows and angus bulls. It got pretty dry in 2002 and I lost the pasture I had for them so I sold them.

I really don't know why there was so much resistance to them as there was at the sale barns but it seemed to me that saying tarentaise wasn't much different than saying holstien or longhorn. It just seemed to put a chill on the buyers at the sale. One year the fellow that bought my calves paid $50 a head less for mine than for some charlais that were lighter and two weeks older than mine. I asked him a year later how the calves had done for him and he said they healthiest and best gaining calves he had bought. Another time I had kept a bunch of heifers for replacements but couldn't find pasture. Sold them to myers all natural beef. Got the report back on them and they had graded out 80% choice.
 
Thanks for all the compliments on the calves. I liked the tarentaise cows and calves but if a person is going to use them I don't think you probably ought to go much further than half tarentaise. I've got mostly angus and a few baldie heifers now and they seem to be the most popular breed at the moment so I'm going to try and give the buyers what they want.

Soapweed it looks like you've got some pretty good cows from all the pictures you've posted so I'm bettin you'll have some pretty nice calves out of the tarentaise bulls and you'll like them.
 
All these years on here and that's the first cake feeder I remember seeing. :shock: All this time I thought it was a big block of feed you were talking about. This looks more like a Little Debbie or TastyKake Feeder.
 

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