Fall calvers- what are you excited about?

[red]

Was curious on what combinations our fall calving group is excited about? Are there any bulls that is new & you think will be a good one? What are some of your tried & true matings?

Best of luck on the season too!

Red

 

[afhm]

We tried a few different bulls for falls this year including Hannibal, Pac Man, Hard Core, Doctor Who and a couple of older bulls.  Looks like the cows bred to Hard Core and maybe one to Doctor Who's will probably be cleanup calves though have to wait and see.  We used Ali on some of the heifers as well.  This year we plan on adding a few new bulls into the fall program including for steers Blockbuster, more Heat Wave, Lifeline, maybe Sunseeker.  For females Intense Plus and Analyze This.  Probably will go through the inventory and use up whatever bulls we only have 1,2,or 3 straws of to make more room in the tank for all the other bulls I want to get semen from.

 

[shortdawg]

We used Lead On and  In Focus for purebred Angus calves; Tonic, Sin City,Spike, and a Trump son we used to own on the Shorthorns and for cleanup ; 3C Macho on a couple of the Angus females for some Sim/Angus calves; and Witchdoctor on a blue roan. Also we have a Sonny calf pregnancy coming out of a flush from our Shadra cow and two Bloodstone/Lucky Charm 255 pregnancies due in the spring. We are really excited about those because both are heifers. Possibly another ET calf from a Vortec/Pretty Woman egg , we'll know when she calves. Our first is due 9/8 and most of the rest are due 9/20    ( my birthday) ;D

 

[SKF]

We are just very excited about getting live calves on the ground this year because last year we lost 5 calves.  So far we have had 10 calves only lost one that was born premature and we have about 12 more to go. The one so far that we are excited about is a black and white heifer out of a Hostage cow and a Power Plus son. I posted a picture of her on here recently right after she was born.  She looks to have potienal.

 

[Mark_Forster]

I have some Paddy O'Malley calves about to arrive and I am anxious to see them.  I also have a handfull of HW cow embryos bred to Lightning Jack.  I can't wait to see how they look after seeing some of his calves this year. But for now I am just praying for lots of bull calves.

 

[chambero]

Our AI-bred cows are going to start dropping babies any day now.  We palpated everything about a month ago and it looks like we have about 26 or so stuck to their AI sires.  We've got some Bold Statements, Golden Child, Almost Famous, and Dr. Who on the way among others. 

We've got a bunch of cows bred to a couple of Lifeline sons we own that I'm looking forward to seeing.  Plus a new Meyer bull and a Shamrock son we've used heavily for the first time.

We've got a heifer about to drop a Hard Core calf anytime now.  She is bagged up and getting loose.  Any day now.  I worry about the heat with heifers.

 

[red]

That's a good comment Chambero- the heat. With calving the first part of the year like we do, we have to deal w/ the cold, snow & wind. What are some of the problems you find calving during the late summer or fall besides the heat?

Red

 

[Turkey Creek Ranch]

We have been using our 5 herd bulls, they have sired most of our 4-H calves the past few years. So we are lookin forward to those. We also AI bred all our heifers including one of my past show heifers who we bred to Ali. We bred the others to a variety of different sires. Looking forward to all those calves

 

[olsencattleco]

Theres nothing more exciting than waiting on a new calf crop. We have a few babies already on the ground. We've got about 25 calves to ai and the rest are going to be out of a Lifeline son of kris black's, and our new smokie hannibal son. I am really excited to see the calves out of him. We are calving out most of the first calf heifers now and they are all bred to Ali and Tank. All the ali's look very nice as usual. This was our first year for Tank and we have two of his calves on the ground, both born unnasissted but extremely stout from the get go. I'm very impressed with what he did and threw tons of hair which is a problem with the heat in texas right now. We actually had a cow with twins today. The first calf came without a problem, the second we waited on till we couldnt wait anymore. we got her pulled but she ended up being backwords and was born dead. You dont ever want to lose a calf, but it might be a blessing in the skies now that she can raise her one calf without a problem. How is everyone else holding up in this heat???

 

[shortdawg]

We don't have any calves on the groung yet but, we've been a 100 degrees or better for about a week. One day the heat index was 115 degrees. I'm glad my calves are not here yet.

 

[chambero]

Well our fall calving season officially kicked off about 6:00 last night.  Had our first calf born.  Hardcore bull calf out of a 1st calf heifer my son started showing last year.  Probably around 60 lbs or so.  Cows should start dropping babies any day.

We caught the heifer right as she was starting to calve and got her moved in the barn under fans to have the baby.  I'm glad she didn't have it by herself in the worst heat of the day.  Luckily, its supposed to cool off a little this weekend.

Olsen - I guess we are buying a lot of the same bloodlines from the same place.  We'll probably have 40-50 calves out of two different Lifeline sons we bought off Kris last year.  We bought a Hannibal son in the sale this summer.  I've thought about using Tank, but haven't done so yet.  I've seen lots of his calves I've liked as babies. 

When its hot, we don't wait long on heifers before pulling.  Cows have to take care of theirselves out in the pasture.

 

[NHR]

We have one calf to come in the next week that I am anxiously awaiting. We had a super SS Kaboom heifer calf born in June out of a Trump grand daughter and now we are waiting on her full sister to have another SS Kaboom calf. If this mating turns out to be good then we will have found a possible donor.

 

[mp]

I have been curious about the tank calves. We were at Kris's sale and saw that he had alot of heifers bred to him mostly charolais. Does anyone know were there is a picture of Tank, and how do vereybody elses Tank calves look?

 

[chambero]

I don't think a publicly available photo exists.  But I've seen calves out of him for at least three years now.  Not sure how they've done as big calves, but there have been too many good babies for them to be accidents.

If I remember right, he's a Heat Seeker x (1/2 CharxAngxHerf) cow.  I did notice there were heifers bred to him at the sale this summer.

 

[farmboy]

we still have 3 cows to calve. We had 2 last week, two cows, two calves, they look like twins  we had some mistaken calf identity haha, one was with the other mommy and vice versa...also the cow that had the calf in my avatar is carrying his full sib hasnt calved yet

 

[Tx Black Steer]

We AI to Ali and Dr. Who looking foreward to them of coarse, but really looking foreward to the new ones from our new bull.  He is a Solution son we bought from Sullivans sale in Texas.  He is called "Hes The Solution".  We got one calf on the ground about 5 days age.  Looks good.  Really nice bone and up and going good.  Excited about the rest!

 

[chambero]

TX Black Steer - Where are you from in Texas?  I'm up around Wichita Falls in a little town called Henrietta.

 

[olsencattleco]

Hey chambero, are you familiar with a guy named Michael Brackney(sp) ? He helps out a family here in our county with their calves each year and i believe he's in the witchita falls- henrieta area.

 

[Tx Black Steer]

I'm from the Austin area.  Dad is from Midland.  We trade cattle back and forth.

 

[DLD]

Only the heifers have started - we've got about 25, all AI'ed to OCC Homer and OCC Echelon. Most interesting thing yet is a solid black Homer bull calf out of a mostly Hereford that has some extra white herself... Cows are AI'ed to Hairy Bear, Full Flush, Pale Face, Jazz and High Roller (full sib to Vegas and Sin City). Cleaned up with a black baldie Everclear son, a black 3/4 Limi out of Roulon, and a couple of Angus. As always, I'm excited about the new babies, but a little worried because this is my first set in 4 years without any out of our NFL son (that turned out to be a PHA carrier) - he's consistently sired most of our better ones since we started using him...

TX Black Steer, I'll send you a pm this weekend. I'll bet we know some of the same people - I sell a few around Midland, and know some folks around Austin, too.