Thick butted calving ease heifer bulls from Canada that are available in the US. Our Salute bull, Timeline, is thick butted but I would not consider him a heifer bull. Some of Timeline's owners have used him on heifers, but I am not going to recommend him to anyone as a heifer bull. Our Touchdown bull is a much better choice for heifers. He had an 82 lb BW himself, and so far his heaviest calf was 85 lbs and he is out of a Salute 3 year old cow. Touchdown was the 2009 Canadian National Champion bull and I am super pleased with his first calves. Touchdown has NOT GOT SALUTE in his pedigree. He is sired by K-Kim Last Call 159N ET . They are super thick and very easy fleshing. Our Touchdown calves are the fleshiest calves of all our sire groups at weaning this fall. At the present time, we do not have Touchdown semen in the US but we are in the process of getting his tests done so he can enter the stud and be collected for several countries in the next few months. BTW, Major Leroy will be accompaning him to stud.( Leroy is not a bull I would recommend for heifers either, but many people have used him on heifers. I just think there are much better choices)
A bull I would strongly recommend that fits this bill is Uluru Buster, that is owned by Mechanic, uluru and B Good. He is moderate framed, thich butted and a calving ease sire. Check out the first calves mechanic has pictured in another thread on this site. He is a very good choice. They don't come much thicker made than this bull... and he has an element of softness to his make-up that ensures he will be easy fleshing. Hopefully Mechanic can post a picture of his Buster bull. I don't think I have one on my computer.
Other choices include bulls like Muridale Buster and Buster 2nd, owned by coyote. If you can still find Buster semen in the US, I would be buying all I could find. I think it will become more and more valuable as it becomes more scarce.
One of my all time favorite heifer bulls, is a bull named Shadybrook Optimum 75F. He was owned by Semex, and was never promoted much in the US and Canada. Semex purchased him mainly as a red polled bull to sell into commercial and dairy markets as well as in South American markets. Optimum was bred here at our farm, and sold in dam to Shadybrook. By the way, his dam is still in the Shadybrook herd and is the oldest cow there at 17 years of age. She has been a prolific donor and has never missed having a very good calf. I have used Optimum for many years on heifers and all calves have been unassisted and all have been polled. As a bonus, his calves have all been good enough to sell as breeding stock as every male calf we have had has been sold as a breeding bull, and every heifer has become a breeding female. We sold an Optimum bull to Millvale Shorthorns, Fordville, ND, and Bob Miller says he is the first bull he has used on heifers that he has not had to assist any calves from.
Our Hillside Leader bull is also very easy calving and the Bales family in Tennessee are extremely high on his calves. His calves have all been unassisted from heifers with only one calf so far over 80 lbs and that being from a heifer with some BW in her background. Our first calves from him arrive next spring. BTW, a note to all our Aussie SP gang, we have semen from Hillside Leader stored in Australia, and we are presently looking for someone to market and manage it for us down there. If you know of anyone who may be interested please contact me. I think we can offer some commissions that will make it worthwhile selling this for us.
I know Okotoks has a few bulls that would fit this bill as well, but I will leave him to present them. He is far more experienced with these bloodlines but I am certain he has a few bulls that will work here extremely well.
These are some of the bulls I can think of off the top of my head.
I have attached a few pics of some of these bulls. The picture of Touchdown was taken in September on pasture after he had bred 62 females. We pregnancy tested this group two weeks ago and every female was in calf and it appears that every female must have settled on the first service as the vet said they will calve in a very tight group next spring. I have also attached a picture of a flushmate sister to Touchdown that we are flushing this winter. I have also attached pictures of Muridale Buster,Shadybrook Optimum 75F and Hillside Leader
