Gravity

[aj]

How is the Red Angus bull gravity thought of? What are his strong and weak points?

 

[CAB]

Not going to help you with Gravity AJ, but I am wondering about the AR bull Halfman  Hustler. Anyone have any info about him and his calves?

 

[Mill Iron A]

Gravity will throw an amazing lower quarter into cattle but also can make them a little straight in their hock.  Other than that he is long bodied, high performance, and there will be plenty of muscle to go around.  What kind of red angus bull are you looking for?

 

[aj]

I've got some Red Angus- Shorthorn composites that all go back to the ABS lancer 442 bull. I'm breeding half sisters to half brothers right now. Linebreeding composites if that is possible. I leaning toward moderate growth and moderate milk. Probably shorter made deep ribbed stuff.

 

[CAB]

AJ, who handles the Gravity bull? Thanks

 

[DL]

AJ, who handles the Gravity bull? Thanks

ABS
http://abs-bs.absglobal.com/beef/redangus.asp?CodTouro=29AR0215

aj - from the pedigree it looks like that bull might work well with your cows

 

[CAB]

Thanks DL. Looks good.

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

If you like bulls that are too straight on the hindwheels and small - use him. RW

 

[DL]

If you like bulls that are too straight on the hindwheels and small - use him. RW

I haven't seen the bull but he is a frame score 6 which many would not consider small. While his progeny may have a less than ideal leg set this may be overcome by strong feet and pasterns. Guess it depends on what you want - seems to have inherited the performance and carcass characteristics from his sire - one can always sell one's mistakes by the pound 

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

I don't buy the listed frame score personally. After working several bull sales from Texas through Canada and seeing several hundred bulls sell in the previous sale season, I am concerned about the direction many R A breeders are headed. I saw ALOT of bulls sell in 2010 - 2011 bull sale season that were too straight on their wheels, small boned, small footed and listed with frame score 3+ to -4. Their "performance data" listed them as having yearling weights that were quite admireable, but at 14 to 16 months old, these same bull were a couple of hundred pounds light of what they were supposed to weigh at yearlings.The thing about this that concerns me is that people are calling them "moderate, calving ease bulls". So we sacrifice bone,feet, legs, structure in general, actual performance and do-ability and call them "heifer bulls"? I guess I'm just out of the loop but in the 30+ years I have been involved in the R A breed, it has as a general whole been considered a calving ease breed, with maternal traits and feedstuff conversion. There is a huge difference between cattle that are moderate and cattle that just don't grow. RW

 

[frostback]

I don't buy the listed frame score personally. After working several bull sales from Texas through Canada and seeing several hundred bulls sell in the previous sale season, I am concerned about the direction many R A breeders are headed. I saw ALOT of bulls sell in 2010 - 2011 bull sale season that were too straight on their wheels, small boned, small footed and listed with frame score 3+ to -4. Their "performance data" listed them as having yearling weights that were quite admireable, but at 14 to 16 months old, these same bull were a couple of hundred pounds light of what they were supposed to weigh at yearlings.The thing about this that concerns me is that people are calling them "moderate, calving ease bulls". So we sacrifice bone,feet, legs, structure in general, actual performance and do-ability and call them "heifer bulls"? I guess I'm just out of the loop but in the 30+ years I have been involved in the R A breed, it has as a general whole been considered a calving ease breed, with maternal traits and feedstuff conversion. There is a huge difference between cattle that are moderate and cattle that just don't grow. RW

Looks like the RA are going the way of some shorthorn breeders.

 

[Mill Iron A]

I can definately follow what road warrior is saying. I have used quite a bit of the lancer bull and they do make great females.  I would caution you on foot structure.  So I have something to throw out there, can you stand a decent amount of growth if the bull is smaller framed? I would look at c bar contour, cbar powerball, lot 7 from Ludvigsons stock farms sale last year and if you want to safety up potentially look at HXC conquest but beware of front ends from that bull and he can potentially get a little weak behind the shoulders. love cherokee canyon but some of the smallest pelvises anywhere.  I would also look at major leauge.  The calves where not as phenomenal as everyone had hoped but the bull still looks grat at stud, the females take a couple of years but if you notice most of the best new bulls coming out are from ml mothers.  And finally we retain ownership and ml cattle kick butt on the railm

 

[aj]

From what I can gather the Red Angus hasn't done the showring much till the last what 15 years. They were a breed developed as strictly performance. NO SHOW RING to screw them up. They had MANDATORY performance data required. Since they didn't do the showring there was less FOREIGN blood introduced to their gene pool cause they DID NOT DO SHOWRING. They are very pure cattle. They do have a appendix program but it wasn't used that heavily. The Shorthorn breed is currently a SHOWRING breed. The Red Angus wasn't. So if the Red Angus cattle are going the way of the shorthorns its cause they are going the way of the SHOWRING. Frosbite is probably right. The showring as in any breed tends to screw the breed up. I'll take the stucture deal under advisement. I do think that commercial guys in our area aren't impressed with perfect structure. They don't notice till a cow breaks down. They last 7 yrs on an average. There teeth are gone. They usually end up going to town probably cause they are open. This thread is kinda going the way of you need big cows to have calves that grow. I think that is false. You need fast growing calves that grow fast and early maturing then THEY NEED TO STOP GROWING. I really think that maternal cattle won't be big in the future. Its not the job of Red Angus to gain 8 pounds aday in a feedlot. imo it is their job to be a moderately sized COW that can survive in hell . I think after this summers heat there are going to be alot of open females across the country. Will the color deal get revisited? Is the color red better than blacks in 60 stright days of temperatures over 100 degrees. I wouldn't be surprised if this discussion develops. Maybe its not an advantage. The Shorthorn breed is currently a SHOWRING breed. They are good at it. If the Red Angus are following the Shorthorn breed "god help us".

 

[CAB]

Thanks RW. I don't need more cattle that are or even potentially too strait.

 

[Mill Iron A]

The red angus breed is not going the way of the Shorthorns.  There are a couple breeders now that flash some show pictures in the red angus magazine more than in the past but that is not even close to putting how well they do at a show on their reg. papers.  Most breeders are concerned with the mother cow, calving ease, and performance.  I can see the early maturity discussion but what is early maturity to you and how much should a cow weigh?  I think it is more related to where you live.  Also, why can't we get more performance out of smaller framed early maturing cattle?  Case in point when I was in college I thought I had the world by the tail and I went and bought 3 heifer calves from panhandle red angus.  Beautiful cowherd and the epitomy of rugged commercial minded breeding. Since we were may/june calvers as well and lived only a 100 miles away as the crow flies we just put them in with our commercial red angus/charolais heifer calves.  All of the pb calves bred and we had a really good breed up on our comm heifers as well.  After the first calf all three pb red angus heifers who only weighed 800 lbs and were a fr score 4.5 to 5 DID NOT BREED BACK! Granted we run cattle pretty hard but it still doesn't settle well with me that the comm heifers bred back and are still in production today.  They raise bigger calves that do a lot better in the feedlot and the char cross heifers turned into 5.5 to 6 frame cows and their mat weight ranges from 1300 to 1450.  Granted heterosis is known to improve fertility and I took that into account but my thought is that in the north you need body mass in order to keep the cow warmer in the winter.  Science says that it is much harder to cool an object that has more density and less surface area.  Yes, the char cross cows will eat more.  Approximately 2160 more lbs of dry matter in a year than and 1100 lb mat cow.  In our program in most years almost none of that is hay so we keep our costs down from that standpoint.  But say to put numbers on it we were feeding hay to make up the difference in the two and hay cost $100 a ton.  That is $108 more cow cost per year for the larger animal.  Now when that 1100 lb pb british cow has a calf and it goes to the feedlot on the average it will weigh 1200 lbs at slaughter with a 61% dressing percentage.  Since our YG system is flawed it will look over the fact that the calf will barely cut an 11 or 12 inch eye and favor it for having a lower cw which saves him from being a YG4 and puts him high choice or even prime if you would like.  The larger cow's calf will finish at 1375 and dress at 63%.  Given the larger carcass weight he will likely be a YG 3 unless his 15 inch eye and lower bf can push him into the YG 2 range.  Say he goes Select because he was pushed to finish in the same time period that the 1100 pound cows calf was in.  The smaller steer today with a $9 per cwt advantage in choice yields a $1320.28 pay day on the rail.  The heavier calf yields a $1472.63 pay day without a YG premium and without calculating in cost/lb of gain differences (which would be substantial) and after subtracting the added feed costs from the larger cow, the larger steer still yields a $54.35 premium over the smaller steer.  Now adding in that we calve in June and the second trimester is in the winter and we graze out with a supplement that $108 nearly goes away if you don't calculate in added stocking capacity.  Point being we can raise smaller framed heavier muscled cattle that perform in the cow herd on forage and supplement and will have offspring that jump through the hoops in the feedlot and end up on the rail with a valuable end product.

 

[aj]

Excellent Mill Iron! Are you my cousin? What about the conversion factorin the feedlot. Isn't this the major factor in profit. Won't a pen of smaller cattle eat less than a pen of bigger framed calves. I know that the few calves I had on feed at the one feedlot feddout were eating 21# aday whereas another pen was consuming 27#s. Shouldn't the conversion factor of say 5.3-1 verses a 6-1 ratio figure in the profit formula also?

 

[Mill Iron A]

True but how do we meause it? I don't trust the current grow safe system for the reason that there are too many variables.  Cattle put on gain more efficiently at certain points in their growth curve than others so it is very hard to tell.  Plus what are they putting that efficient gain into?  Case in point fat is 1.7X easier to put on than muscle from a pure energy basis.  However, muscle is 4X more efficient than fat in terms of weight gain because for every 1 lb of muscle the animal needs an additional 1 lb of water.  Therefore that pen of larger steers could eat 27 lbs and then gain 4 lbs of muscle because they are later maturing and have not put on their genetic potential while your calves were eating 21 lbs but were only gaining 2 because they are earlier maturing and past that stage of growth and are on to the more inefficient phase of weight gain.  Therefore this is really hard to compare and the only way it would be closer is if a producer had one heat cycle of 100+ bull calves that were extremely linebred/inbred and they were all put on test at the same time.  Knowledge of feed rations and commercial additives and when to use them can for the moment make more difference to your bottom line than genetics.  Once a true reliable way of measuring feed efficiency comes out then yes it will be huge.  But until that happens I remain a skeptic.  About the cousin thing... why not seems like I run into enough people I don't know that I'm related to so it wouldn't be a first.

 

[aj]

So maybe smaller framed cattle need to be pushed hard and early in there lives? There would probably less potential to use these moderate cattle on grass as yearlings? It is really getting expensive to put fat on cattle these days cause of 8 $ corn. One thing about the magical 4 # aday figure....like you said.....is what phase of the feeding process are they in. When they warm the cattle up on a growing ration it is a low energy ration. Then there is a lick in there where the energy is really poured to them. I would think that all cattle could gain 4# aday during this time frame. Then once the cattle start to fatten up there effeciency and growth starts to decline. I would think for propaganda purposes there would be a period when any cattle would gain 4 pounds. I am studying my feeding summary from my feedlot deal. Each steer ate 4,786 # of feed. They averaged 23.8 #s consumption aday. Ration cost was 204$ a ton. Cost per head per day was 2.66$ aday. No death loss. Conversion factor dry was 5.33. Their feeding period was 201 days. Cost of gain was 79.66 cents. I really don't know if this is good or bad. I suppose it also depends on whether the cattle are standing in mud,or a foot of snow,110 degree temperature or 80 degree temperature. The cattle gained 3.29 pounds aday over the 201 days on feed. That seems a little low but this covers a background period. Again I don't know. Why isn't cost of gain more important than pounds gained perday? Interest cost? Opportunity cost? I'm sure rations vary by region also. Feedlots are trying to cheapen up rations by grinding cornstalks and stuff now. Feed is higher than Willie Nelson right now. Any kind of feed.

 

[Mill Iron A]

For us it's just opposite, the cattle grow hard and fast on grass which makes it an even more economical option and then still have some room to put on some pounds in the feedlot.  Those numbers look really good right now especially cost/per lb of gain which relates to adg.

 

[aj]

I think it would be interesting to study how feedlot rations change in accordage to say 8 dollar corn and 250$ alfalfa. The best least cost ration is probably not always the gain at a pants on fire rate. I just wonder if the new frontier might not be in the effiency area. Or can that much improvement be made in effiency?