Angus Bulls Question - pics added

[Till-Hill]

Yes now on Angus website he has changed again since book came out but he is still only a 7 CED. I just wouldn't use a bull on a heifer that was only one point above breed average. I go for at least top 20% of their breed. There is a ton of angus bulls that will give you good phenotype and still be in the top of the breed for CED. BW is not calving ease in my book. And heck yes I'm sure some people as stated on here have used him on heifers with great results so great for them. Just not for me. Good luck. 

 

[OH Breeder]

Yes now on Angus website he has changed again since book came out but he is still only a 7 CED. I just wouldn't use a bull on a heifer that was only one point above breed average. I go for at least top 20% of their breed. There is a ton of angus bulls that will give you good phenotype and still be in the top of the breed for CED. BW is not calving ease in my book. And heck yes I'm sure some people as stated on here have used him on heifers with great results so great for them. Just not for me. Good luck. 

Well instead of speculating any further, I just left message with owners to get their input. I am not an angus guy. I figure it is probably the best way to get the information I want. I appreciate your input on this matter as I always think its good to get different perspectives. I do not look at numbers a whole lot cuz they are only as good as the person entering them. Real world experience tends to make more sense to me.

 

[mainecattlemother]

I know you have been talking ABS but Genex has the Angus bull Lookout.  It is suppose to be the Angus clubby bull.  Low birth weight but good rate of gain and I believe would be quite a good show heifer.  There was a Lookout at Badger kick off that I believe was in the final drive.  I have seen some show in MN already and look great.  We also kept a Lookout bull calf back a couple years ago as a bull and the calves are looking great!!! Just a suggestion.

 

[Till-Hill]

Yes now on Angus website he has changed again since book came out but he is still only a 7 CED. I just wouldn't use a bull on a heifer that was only one point above breed average. I go for at least top 20% of their breed. There is a ton of angus bulls that will give you good phenotype and still be in the top of the breed for CED. BW is not calving ease in my book. And heck yes I'm sure some people as stated on here have used him on heifers with great results so great for them. Just not for me. Good luck. 

Well instead of speculating any further, I just left message with owners to get their input. I am not an angus guy. I figure it is probably the best way to get the information I want. I appreciate your input on this matter as I always think its good to get different perspectives. I do not look at numbers a whole lot cuz they are only as good as the person entering them. Real world experience tends to make more sense to me.

Yes I always take real experiences over just epd's. That's why I at least use a high accuracy bull on heifers and use them ones I think have the ability to be calving ease on them 2nd calvers and older cows to see how they work in my herd before I use them on my heifers.

 

[Ruchian]

Has anybody used Kesslers Frontman?

 

[CAB]

My 2 cents worth would be to use the most predictable calving ease sire that you can find with your heifer's pedigree. The biggest calf that I think I have ever seen was a Hairy X Sunseeker, so some BW issues could be laying underneath your heifer. From what I have seen Northern Improvement is still going to be hard to beat for CE and still have some look when you are done. JMO.

 

[bluffcountrycattle]

Till-Hill- My ABS guy suggested him. I recieved the old Beef Supplement from rep. See advertising ABS  is advertising him Calving ease.

Direct from ABS literature Spring Beef Supplement.

http://www.absglobal.com/usa/media/beef/files/SPRING2010BEEFBJ.pdf



LIMESTONE JUPITER U449 29AN1753
Unique Calving Ease Sire with a Killer Look

You were looking at 2010. I got 2011 in front of me. His CED is 6 with BW 1.3 He is below breed average for BW but now they label his as UNIQUE PEDIGREE AND A KILLER LOOK. So he dropped from last year.

As of 4.13.2011 the most current EPD's according to AAA is

BW  .9
Acc .73

From what I could get their haven't been any issues. I have some larger made females to try him on. His father is OCC Jupiter who is calving ease. I know his mother has some bw in her background. I haven't heard what you did mr hill.

We bred 6 heifers to Jupiter, and sold 4.  Our 2 Jupiter bull calves out of heifers were 70 and 72 lbs and shaped right for calving.  The heifers were not that big, and we didn't touch either of them.  Plenty of style and have a good look!  2 others we sold also had bull calves less than 75 lbs...not sure about the other 2 heifers we sold.  We had one BC Lookout bull calf out of a heifer that also weighed 72 lbs and looks good.  The Lookouts are a little bit stouter made, so could potentially be harder calving.  Another easy calving angus bull I would look at is SAV Brilliance...heard very good things about them!  The Frontman calves are sounding good too...proven calve ease, but have heard of a few bigger ones.  Use him on a longer bodied female and you'll like the results.  Hope that helps! 

 

[ploughshare]

I have to agree with CAB.  NI will give you a decent calf and save the heifer for her next calf.  Frontman will give calving ease, but I think you will be disappointed if you want a show calf.  Patience Iago. Another bull you might consider is Raptor.

 

[OH Breeder]

I just got some word back from the folks at Limestone about Jupiter calving ease.....


Thanks for you interest in the bull Limestone Jupiter U449 and Limestone LLC.  We have used the Jupiter bull in both spring and fall calving herds with minimal difficulties but we have had customers that have said that they had a little trouble in the spring calving heifers with the bull.  As for the fall calvers we haven’t had any trouble at all.  I wouldn’t hesitate to use him on heifers in our program but I am not familiar with your situation.  The customers of ours that had problems were using him on spring calving heifers that were sired by calving ease bulls, that said I don’t think you should have to many problems if you are planning to use him on heifers whose sires have a more moderate birth weight epd (generally larger pelvic area). 

 

[Mueller Show Cattle]

My 2 cents worth would be to use the most predictable calving ease sire that you can find with your heifer's pedigree. The biggest calf that I think I have ever seen was a Hairy X Sunseeker, so some BW issues could be laying underneath your heifer. From what I have seen Northern Improvement is still going to be hard to beat for CE and still have some look when you are done. JMO.

I like this post, great discusion. I have a Heat Wave heifer that I am going to AI next month and have looked at many different bulls and breeds to AI her with. I choose to take the easy road for her first calf and go with Angus. I was wanting a calf that would still have some show ring appeal out of her but still was easy calving. I wanted some simmi influence but was just afraid with her blood line that breeding her to a simmi bull, that she would have a hard time calving. So I have chosen to use Northern Improvement on her and plan to use a easy calving simmi bull on her 2nd calf.  I have taken every precaution so far with doing a pelvic measurement and everything checked out good, last thing to do was pick an easy calving bull (easier said than done).

 

[Mueller Show Cattle]

Has anybody used Kesslers Frontman?

I looked at him, he has great EPD's, I was a little worried about the style his calfs will have at least for show ring (not seen any, just taking a guess). He is not been around a long time (6 years) but not a new bull either. I do like Northern Improvement's EPD's with being an older bull.

 

[OH Breeder]

Brought this back. Our heifer calved to jupiter today 5 days early. She had a 60# bull calf that was up and nursing before we could even get out to the barn. Momma is a dirty hairy x ch- angus big gal for heifer. Lively little guy.

 

[jmb1498]

The pictures really helped on this one.  I'm personally breeding that type of heifer to sexed Lookout and Bismarck.  I would be very comfortable with NI and Brilliance as they are proven CE and consistent on look. IMO they would not offer enough guts in this case.

 

[OH Breeder]

Brought this back up for the angus Ai sires.

 

[nate53]

Brought this back. Our heifer calved to jupiter today 5 days early. She had a 60# bull calf that was up and nursing before we could even get out to the barn. Momma is a dirty hairy x ch- angus big gal for heifer. Lively little guy.

Okay you had a 60lb. calf out of Jupiter.  HIs birthweight epd wasn't the problem, it's his CED +4 that isn't good enough for a heifer IMO.  Yea maybe he's fine on 18 out of 20 heifers?  But he's got that epd for a reason people are reporting it as such (harder calving) 56%acc.

 

[OH Breeder]

Brought this back. Our heifer calved to jupiter today 5 days early. She had a 60# bull calf that was up and nursing before we could even get out to the barn. Momma is a dirty hairy x ch- angus big gal for heifer. Lively little guy.

Okay you had a 60lb. calf out of Jupiter.  HIs birthweight epd wasn't the problem, it's his CED +4 that isn't good enough for a heifer IMO.  Yea maybe he's fine on 18 out of 20 heifers?  But he's got that epd for a reason people are reporting it as such (harder calving) 56%acc.

Ok? What?
I don't think I made any recommendations for anyone to use him. We breed all heifers and the week beofre calving they are shut up and we take turns checking them. I would never recommend using a newer bull that I personally hadn't had consitent calving ease with. That is why I contacted owners. I am not a numbers person because we have had some problems in past relying solely on numbers. That is why any time you use a new bull on your genetics it should be with caution calving ease or not. I am not that bright to read EPD's. If they had a EPD's for dummies would probably work better for me. I know we have used bulls on our cows others have had success but we didn't.
I seriously have been reading to try an understand the breed variations. One of the guys in an article I read said "Angus, go for a calving ease (CE) value of 13 or better and minus 1 or less for a birth weight EPD. If it is a Red Angus, then insist on a minus 3.5 or less for a birth weight EPD to compare with the Black Angus values. Don’t forget the heifers own genetic values contribute 50 percent and maybe you need to tone down the growth on the bulls you are using for sires of the replacement heifers."

 

[Aussie]

I don't know if he is available in the US but Dylemma Radar is a good heifer bull here carried by ABS. Older proven bull sired many champions in Aust and UK
http://abri.une.edu.au/online/cgi-bin/i4.dll?1=22342A3D&2=2420&3=56&5=2B3C2B3C3A&6=5D5A5B262524242E2D

 

[OH Breeder]

I don't know if he is available in the US but Dylemma Radar is a good heifer bull here. Older proven bull sired many champions in Aust and UK
http://abri.une.edu.au/online/cgi-bin/i4.dll?1=22342A3D&2=2420&3=56&5=2B3C2B3C3A&6=5D5A5B262524242E2D

So what about his numbers? His BW EPD +2.3 CE +4.6 is that right?

 

[Aussie]

I don't know if he is available in the US but Dylemma Radar is a good heifer bull here. Older proven bull sired many champions in Aust and UK
http://abri.une.edu.au/online/cgi-bin/i4.dll?1=22342A3D&2=2420&3=56&5=2B3C2B3C3A&6=5D5A5B262524242E2D

So what about his numbers? His BW EPD +2.3 CE +4.6 is that right?

His EBV 's are correct and are high accuracy because of the number of progeny he has. But remember EBV's are different and formutated differently to EPD's

 

[nate53]

Brought this back. Our heifer calved to jupiter today 5 days early. She had a 60# bull calf that was up and nursing before we could even get out to the barn. Momma is a dirty hairy x ch- angus big gal for heifer. Lively little guy.

Okay you had a 60lb. calf out of Jupiter.  HIs birthweight epd wasn't the problem, it's his CED +4 that isn't good enough for a heifer IMO.  Yea maybe he's fine on 18 out of 20 heifers?  But he's got that epd for a reason people are reporting it as such (harder calving) 56%acc.

Ok? What?
I don't think I made any recommendations for anyone to use him. We breed all heifers and the week beofre calving they are shut up and we take turns checking them.
I seriously have been reading to try an understand the breed variations. One of the guys in an article I read said "Angus, go for a calving ease (CE) value of 13 or better and minus 1 or less for a birth weight EPD.

I guess I assumed you were recommending him because of all the positive you posted about him in the thread on being calving ease.  No #'s aren't the the only thing to look for in a bull but it is a really good place to start - especially if one is looking for a very safe bet on heifers.  Yes the heifer is half the equation or more (even more reason to look at the the bull you are using and his #'s and be more particular strict on what qualifies).
We used to do the exact same thing on the heifers  as far as penning them up and checking on them every 4hrs. or so - we do not anymore (past 5 years) and I don't miss it (no problems).

I keep reading new threads on here asking for a surefire calving ease Angus bull to use on heifers, that may or may not have calving problems in their background.  Several people recommending this bull or that bull for heifers and say that he is calving ease, when his numbers (some have high acc. and some have low acc.)  are below average for CED and way above for B.W.  Then others say his numbers aren't good enough for a heifer , then the recommender's  go on to say that we have used them on XX number of heifers with little to no problems.  Then I am looking at the #'s on these bulls and some do have high accuracy to them - and thinking all these calving reports from the breeders to the association must be wrong (because the breeders are saying he has calving problems and it is reflecting in the #'s.  So who in the world is reporting all of these false??? calving problems that are influencing these supposed surefire calving ease bulls that are being recommended.
OH Breeder you are more than bright enough to read epd's (if I can do it anybody can do it).  Here is a link to Black Angus breed averages http://angus.org/Nce/BreedAverageEPDs.aspx
If you want the best look at the top 25% of the breed with accuracy.

Sorry for the ramble- I'm not trying to gripe at you OH Breeder (I understand and respect what you have to say-Jupiter does have his b.w. going for him for calving ease) just trying to get a point across to many.  I will not interfere in anymore of these calving ease post!