Charolais Bull

[Mill Iron A]

We just acquired this bull this spring and have him collected with the intention of using him heavily.  You can find him under lot 12 once you go to this link : http://www.effertzkeyranch.com/bullsale2011.htm  Let me know what you think!

 

[rackranch]

What are his EPD's ?

 

[knabe]

make sure he can cover his tracks when he is walking.  hard to tell from the video since he is trotting so much whether he can do that.

doesn't seem to have the scope and fluidity as some of the other bulls.

caution, these are armchair breeder comments.

 

[Mark H]

His EPDs From the Effertz Key Sale Catalog:

CE: +3  BW: + 1.7  WW: +33.6  YW: + 51.2  Milk : -7.4  MCE: + 6.1  MTRNL: + 9.4  CWT: +20 REA: +0.32 FAT: -.012 MARB +.02Growth and maternal accuracies are BK All carcass accuracies are PE.
Individual Weaning ratio: 100 with 96 contemporaries
Individual Yearling ratio: 96 with 61 contemporaries.
He doesn't have the biggest weaning weight or ADG in the group and this shows in the ratios he produced at weaning and yearling.  Not a slam dunk performance bull.
Good calving, growth, and carcass EPDs.  Having a negative EPD for Milk will hurt his marketability in the purebred business. 
The video shows a nice, active bull calf doing well after weaning.  Do you have any videos of him on pasture covering cows?  Are you using him on purebred or grade cows?  The quality of his first calf crop will tell the whether he is worth collecting or not.  Too soon to tell right now.
I like Effertz Key cattle and they care about carcass traits.  Anover looked source of brreding stock by the show folks.l

 

[Mill Iron A]

Thank you for the comments, I appreciate honesty and I truly will use your evaluations.  We are just a commercial ranch with around 240 head of Charolais/Red Angus cross cows and we run the yearlings over to the next fall and retain ownership on them.  We run in a little dryer country in Wyoming so the lack of performance wasn't as much of a concern since his contemporaries were purebred charolais from a herd that is on the bigger end anyway.  But hopefully in his first calf crop he isn't lacking too much!  Thank you for posting the E.P.D.'s and ratios.  His actuals were 90 BW 749 WW and 1378 YW.  15.78 Scan REA at 10 Mos. of age and a 42cm scrotal.  I will post more pictures when I can.  Thanks again!

 

[Gargan]

the choppyness (is that even a word, lol) of his step may be from him being full as a tick at the time of the sale. I know the breeders feed them every oz they will eat before sale to look super full. I really like your bull!! He has as much depth of body and rib shape as any charlais that i've ever seen. Congrats on a great animal. Im very anxious to see some great smoke and white hfrs outta this dude!!!

 

[Freddy]

I sure wouldn't plan on keeping females out of this bull , over the years I have learned that it is a lot easier to keep a calf alive from a cow with big tits an plenty of milk ,than one with pretty tits an no milk ....

 

[Mill Iron A]

Updated E.P.D.'s!

CE    BW  WW  YW  Milk  MCE  MTNL    SC    CWT    REA  MARB  FAT
3.0  1.8  34      57    -3    6.3    15        .9      28      .52    -.02    -.003

 

[RyanChandler]

As much as I love Charolais,  he just doesn't do it for me.  He doesn't even come close to covering his tracks.  Phenotypically he appears to be a moderate, maternally oriented type but he has considerably below average maternal epd numbers.  A 57 is a  terrible YW for the retained ownership route.  Unless you have large, framey cattle that milk excessively and your goal is to downsize/moderate them,  I don't see the practicality in a bull like this.

I think you would be much better off w/ a bull with better EPDs like the one I purchased last Oct (M786658).

CE  BWT  WWT  YWT  MILK  MCE  MTNL  SCRO  CW  REA    FAT  MARB
8.1  .8        37      65      11      5.5      29        .9        24    .27    -.022    09

These are solid numbers for an moderate Charolais bull.  If your looking for strictly terminal, I would want a YW EPD of at least 75. 

 

[Freddy]

Ryan your bull has more useable traits  that can be used in my herd  then the bull compared too ...  With his milk EPD'S he would be strictly terminal  for me an I have never liked the sound of a terminal Charolais bull ,we also have terminal cattle in the ANGUS BREED  now ,but not what I'm looking for in our environment ...

 

[Mark H]

Just keep in mind that all the EPDs compared here are PE or very low accuracy.  We need calves out of both bulls to see what their true worth is.

 

[Mill Iron A]

When I was looking for a bull to buy previous to the sale I had the same thougts about him not covering his tracks and almost wrote him off.  However, in person he is one of the soundest bulls i have ever seen but you can't get that throught the video so I guess you will have to take my word for it.  It's interesting to me the vast differences in cattle everyone likes and I think it is something to key in on.  The bull you listed has truly great numbers.  What is his frame? as far as YW the bull I bought is probably too big for us and we retain ownership.  We usually use charolais bulls in the YW range of 30-40 and still manage a minimum of 1325 liveweight in the feedlot on mixed cattle.  The same goes for the milk, we are not a purebred outfit so we are crossing him on heavy milking red angus and angus cows.  If your bull was moderate enough he would be very interesting to me though.  Do you have any pics or video? He does sound interesting.  On an entirely different note are you by chance any relation to the Chandler herefords in Oregon?  Not likely but it would be a small world if you were.

 

[RyanChandler]

When I was looking for a bull to buy previous to the sale I had the same thougts about him not covering his tracks and almost wrote him off.  However, in person he is one of the soundest bulls i have ever seen but you can't get that throught the video so I guess you will have to take my word for it.  It's interesting to me the vast differences in cattle everyone likes and I think it is something to key in on.  The bull you listed has truly great numbers.  What is his frame? as far as YW the bull I bought is probably too big for us and we retain ownership.  We usually use charolais bulls in the YW range of 30-40 and still manage a minimum of 1325 liveweight in the feedlot on mixed cattle.  The same goes for the milk, we are not a purebred outfit so we are crossing him on heavy milking red angus and angus cows.  If your bull was moderate enough he would be very interesting to me though.  Do you have any pics or video? He does sound interesting.  On an entirely different note are you by chance any relation to the Chandler herefords in Oregon?  Not likely but it would be a small world if you were.

I don't think I have any relatives in OR but I did just get back from a pheasant hunt at the Big K in Elkton.  That is some nice country up there. I purchased LED WEIGHT at Jack Moore's dispersal sale in Alvaredo last year. The dispersal sale was held a Sat morning after their annual bull sale on Friday. I talked to Mr. Moore the morning of the Friday sale and started picking his brain a bit.  He told me the best animal in the sale was a 10 mnth old bull calf out of his herd sire LED WEIGHT 609. I flipped through the sale catalog to lot 271A and pointed. He just smilled and noded.  9132 is a frame 5 at close to 1500lbs.  He'll be 2 the end of Dec. I've ran many of cows/bulls and he is by far the easiest fleshing animal I've ever raised.  I honestly didn't push him this spring  as I wasn't expecting to put him on any cows until next year but I had a man stop by and all but beg to use him on a 8-10 head he had in Sulphur Springs. I'm hoping this will give me a good idea of his potential before he goes on a large group of cows.  I will see if I can get a recent pic as the ones I have are from at about 10mnths old. 

 

[SheilAnneDavis]

I had to create an account just to reply to you.  I grew up in Elkton, Oregon and spent summers from 2004-2008 working at the Big K. They are amazing people up there! I have since moved off for college and just graduated from the University of Idaho. I hope that you enjoyed your time in Elkton, it is a little piece of paradise and has some amazing smallmouth bass fishing. My families place is just down river from the Big K stretch of the Umpqua.

 

[Mill Iron A]

This is for Mark H.  These pics were taken today the 20th of September and he has been breeding since August 16th.

 

[rarebirdz]

There r slot of things I like about this bull the video makes 1 wonder about how he travels?

 

[simmyman67]

Wow that's a good looking bull you've got there!

 

[Mark H]

He isn't a bad looking little guy on good grass with a bunch of cows.  Like I said it will be interesting to see what his calves look like.
For all you guys that think a big milk EPD is the end all and be all of a herd sire the milk EPD only explains around 2% of the variation in a calves weaning weight.  It tells you nothing about fertility, bags, or if she has skipped a calf. In short a big milk EPD is nice but it doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[SWMO]

Agree with Mark.  Milk epd's in the charolais breed tell me very little.  I want the see the cow and her bag to determine udder quality and milk.  Some the the high epd cows have very poor udders and many of the low milk epd cows milk exceptionally well.  Not a big fan of milk epds in the charolais breed it is just a starting point in selection.

Judy

 

[fullblood]

B-C High Lite 5352 (256727) anyone have pictures or know anything about this bull?