Hill Haven Fire Storm 28C

[psmith624]

Do you have any data on his sexed semen conception rates? I am considering using him on my shorthorn cattle. His video and EPDs are impressive. Nice bull!

 

[matt999]

We are loving our firestorm heifer calves we got last year and so far this year. We didn’t get the Sexed semen til late last breeding season so didn’t get a chance to use it ourselves but a guy bought 2 straws and went 2 for 2 for heifer pregnancies. If you look up sexing technologies website you can findout all the info on the sexed ultra 4M semen quality.

 

[psmith624]

Great! I may give it a try then. I have purchased conventional this year so I may try it with my spring calves. Thank you for your help!

 

[matt999]

Progeny pics

 

[justintime]

I have been impressed with Fire Storm since I first saw him and have been using his semen in our ET program since it became available. I have just ordered another 20 straws, which makes 90 straws that I have used so far. I expect I will be using more in the future.
It seems that word is getting around the world as to how good Fire Storm and his offspring are, as I can hardly keep embryos sired by him in inventory. In the past two weeks I have had emails from Argentina and Chile asking only about Fire Storm embryos. I have already sent embryos by him to Australia, the UK and Ireland. A couple months ago, I posted a note on my facebook page offering a set of Fire Storm embryos and within minutes of posting, they sold to a breeder in Australia. I got real lucky, in that I found a tank that was being shipped to Australia that had room and we were able to get them to the buyer in a few days.  I am liking the calves I have seen from him as well
I was very fortunate to have been asked to be a judge of the Supreme Champions at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto in 2017. I thought Fire Storm was easily the winner, but I did wonder if a few people would accuse me of being partial to my own breed if I voted for him. It really wasn't a concern, as when the votes were in, every judge had picked him as Supreme Champion bull. The judges came from across Canada and the US, and some of them told me he was the best Shorthorn bull they had seen in years. I have a full sister to Fire Storm here that will be entering our ET program this spring.
Matt, Dale and Bob, you should be very proud of breeding and developing a sire like Fire Storm. I think he is a real breed improver!

 

[uluru]

I have a Firestone heifer born 2 days ago
Matt says she looks pretty good.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

What are the birthwts like. Ive heard some pretty scary reports here and there RE Waco-on US Genetics-which can be prone to calving problems O0

 

[justintime]

I am not hearing any horror stories about calving problems from Fire Storm here in Canada. Of course, if there are birth weight issues, the sires almost always gets the blame. A few years ago, I purchased some semen from a well known calving ease trait leader, and I used a few straws. I had two bull calves born and I castrated both because they were over my own rule of any bull calf over 110 lbs gets banded at birth no matter how good they are. These two calves were the only two I banded in that calf crop. I don't think it was only because of the sire.  I wish we could have an easier way to discuss calving ease besides by using birth weights. Birth weights are a component of calving ease, but as a leading cattle buyer said to me, " if I wanted lighter birth weights, the first thing I would do is select genetics that would produce shorter bodied calves". To me, this makes some sense. I have been told that taking 1 inch out of the rib of a new born calf represents 8-10 lbs, I have never been able to find research to prove if this is correct or not, but one person told me that Oregon State did some research that found this to be true.
Getting back to Fire Storm, I am pretty sure that we would be hearing about the horror stories if they were happening out there. So far, I have heard none. In regards to his sire, Waco, I looked back in my calving records and I have had 8 Waco sired calves born here. All unassisted with BWs of 90-102 lbs.

 

[RyanChandler]

Blah blah blah  your post need to include a disclaimer that your cows are 500-800lbs bigger than most and that you regularly use the very highest birthweight genetics IN THE ENTIRE BREED.  This preface would provide some CONTEXT to your bullshit comments about birthweight.

Just the other day on Facebook, JIT was prompting a bull as a potential heifer bull option. Bayview Unique is the bulls name.  Per the bull’s home country registry, this bull is in the very bottom of the breed for both calving ease and birthweight.  With high accuracies nonetheless.  As opposed to using THE ONLY INFORMATION AVAILABLE on the bull, JIT instead injects more salesman bullshit and chooses to pass the dystopia risk on to the googly eyed unsuspecting.    Additional, immediately after this fb convo I got an email stating that the only calf born in Canada do date out of this particular bull was cranked out with a calf puller!  That’s a fact. 

Waco has huge birthweights.  That’s a fact.  This bull in this post is gonna have huge birthweights too.  How absurd is it to suggest that one specimen within a population is the exception to the entire lineage!! This bull and any other bred like him is gonna throw calves that revert to those all within the pedigree. Hello erratic birthweight city.  No one gives a shit about your anecdotes JIT.  There are literally hundreds of calves born across the country and in many times THE WORLD that dispute the opinions of a bullshit salesman like you.  I’ve talked to two people in S America who both told me MAJOR LEROY was the biggest birthweight bull they ever used. And these aren’t pissants.  I’m talking people with hundreds of cows.  Myself and another guy in Texas used 2 different Major Leroy sons, and just like the S Americans experience with his sire,, these bulls had the largest bw calves either of us had as well.  The dishonesty of those LIKE YOU are the exact reason EPDS were created: to dilute your word and your reportings in favor of reportings from those who prefer HONESTY. 

 

[RyanChandler]

I have been impressed with Fire Storm since I first saw him and have been using his semen in our ET program since it became available. I have just ordered another 20 straws, which makes 90 straws that I have used so far.  I think he is a real breed improver!

90 straws youve used? Ninety? 9-0?  How many cows do you have JIT? What did you donflush them all twice?  :

Specifically what SH breed traits will this bull improve?  Birthweight, calving ease, fleshing ability, milk, marbling, fertility?  Because I have a pretty middle of the road herd of cows and this bull’s infusion would worsen each of these traits I mentioned.  So again I’ll ask: what would this ‘breed improver’  be improving?

 

[mark tenenbaum]

EPDS are only as accurate as the integrity of those report them. The Shorthorn breed has been drowning for years as far as real world usage-even though there are a few very serious breeders who are making a huge (and largely unheralded effort to correct some very basic problems through years of hard work and accurate documentation) My hats off these obviously are not all of them-Toby Jordan,Keith Lauer,Dale Allison,Byland, Jungels , Paint Valley and JMO the largest loss of a breeder as far as functional cattle that could also show Kevin Kimmerling  Unfortunately the show cattle EPDS might as well in a large part be picked from bouncing balls like the lottery. The most glaring example is a 0 BW EPD National show winning female Sired by SULL SALUTE ON A CF SOLUTION FEMALE THAT PROBABLY GOES BACK TO THESE FUNCTIONAL COMMERCIALLY APPEALING GENTICS AGAIN. I DO NOT SEE WITH ALL YOUR MONEY,SUCCESS, AND LUCK HOW YOU MR BIGSHOT COULD THINK EVEN THE MOST TRUE BELIEVING HANDRUBBING WANNA BE LEMMING THAT HAS MADE YOU WEALTHY WOULD BUY THAT SH%^&*)_T-OR YOU COULD WITH ANY KIND OF CONSCIENCE SQUANDER YOUR LIMITED CREDIBILTY LIKE A COMMON SHOP LIFTER AND ANY BREED SECRETARY THAT WOULD ALLOW EPDS LIKE THIS TO EXIST IN A STRUGGLING BREED SHOULD BE FIRED-GET MY DRIFT MR SOULES-THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT WORK HARD AND DESERVE SOME INTEGRITY-NOT JUST THE FAT CATS-NO PUN INTENDED O0

 

[justintime]

I have no ideas what is wrong with you Ryan. It must be a pretty sad existence to have to live such a negative life. You don't have to believe me, I really don't care. I actually just got another 20 straws of Fire Storm since I posted the last post so I now have got 110 straws. The main reason I am using Fire Storm is that embryos sired by him are selling quickly. I have a partner in England who owns 10 donors with me. He tells me the Fire Storm embryos were the first to sell out. I have found the same thing. In regards to flushing cows, yes, I usually flush my donors at least twice, some 7-8 times before they come back home and get bred again. Right now, I have 7 cows at the ET center,  and I often have one or two more there. Why would I do this? Probably because I have made selling embryos a big part of my business. I just passed selling 2400 embryos in the fall of 2018 and they have gone to 14 countries. I am not bragging, it is a fact. There is a market for Shorthorn embryos if you work at developing a market. Two years ago, I sold the first Shorthorn genetics from North America to Costa Rica. I have recently got emails from Argentina, Chile and Sweden regarding Shorthorn embryos. I am doing it differently that most are, in that I do not concentrate on American show genetics. I will use them occasionally, but most of the time, I try to offer different genetics than most others do. My embryo inventory just arrived two days ago from the ET center and I have 358 embryos and have 3 more flushes in the next week. You  may be surprised to know that I just sold a set of 30 Shorthorn embryos to a guy in Texas. He has never owned a Shorthorn before.
I only commented on Fire Storm because I think he is a pretty good bull. I have not heard of any calving issues, but like any bull, use your head when you use him.
I have often heard that it is people who that are less successful than you are, who will attack you and that people more successful than you, will not. If this is true, you must be less successful than most any other breeder, because I have seen you attack most everyone. Unlike you, I will cheer for a good animal, regardless of it's breeding and regardless of who owns it, whenever I see one.
In regards to Bayview Unique K11, time will tell but from what I am hearing from Australia, he is going a good job. If you happened to even read what I said about him, I said that one breeder in Australia bred a group 70 heifers, and half were bred to Unique and half were bred to a calving ease trait leader. He said that there was no noticeable different is calving problems from each bull. I then said, until we see how he does in North America, I am not going to call him a bull to use on heifers. I had two young couples from Australia visit me 6 weeks ago, and they were very high on this bull and they said he looks far more impressive in real life, even in the severe drought they are experiencing. I have not seen the bull myself, but he is getting good reviews and I felt he offers some newer genetics. Time will tell if he works here, and if he doesn't, I will dump his semen. I am not going to lose my farm if I have to do so. So Ryan... please grow up!  I wish you would realize that you are hurting yourself more than you could ever hurt me by doing this.
One of the nice things about this business is that we don't have to use the same sires as anyone else. Ryan, you don't ever have to use Fire Storm, and quite frankly, I hope you don't. Just last night, I got an email from a guy who has just started calving and he mentioned that he has had 3 Fire Storm calves this week and they look very good. He didn't mention anything about calving problems, he just said his 3 calves looked very good and  that he was waiting for 2 more to arrive. He said he will be using more of him this year. And the reason for his email, was to ask me some questions on the Fire Storm embryos I have in our online embryo sale coming up later this month.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

Looks like a permanent case of buyers remorse and continuation of some earlier tantrums-XBAR is plenty smart enough to research breeding etc-and he made some valid points  supported by this-But he bought one that just didnt work on his genetics So did another guy in Texas-Which although the ones remarked about are performance cattle-appear to have some of the  the "low BW" Enticer Gold and maybe Byland Dazzler related breeding back there-which can be pretty adverse with some lines sometimes.  Thats the beginning of it-I do remember you stating that not everything out of Major Leroy was moderate at birth "and that you can get some big ones once in awhile out of him"-from what Ive heard here and there on my own-Better breed him to (hopefully) low BW genetics and or big cows down here-or make preparations for a train wreck That being said-the BWs are higher and the cows bigger up in Canada so a 100 pound calf is not a cow killer up there and probably more the norm Ive seen tons of bulls etc on sales up there with BWS over 100 pounds and the long and short is that Leroy at least through related experiences of a number of breeders-is a hard calving bull period. I think thats reflected in his EPDS-which I DO NOT SEE ON A GROUP OF US SHOW BULLS THAT ARE KNOWN COW KILLERS -in reality there are certainly alot of 100 pound calves down here too if they are shaped right and out of a cow with a large enough birth canalO0

 

[woodyc]

I am not hearing any horror stories about calving problems from Fire Storm here in Canada. Of course, if there are birth weight issues, the sires almost always gets the blame. A few years ago, I purchased some semen from a well known calving ease trait leader, and I used a few straws. I had two bull calves born and I castrated both because they were over my own rule of any bull calf over 110 lbs gets banded at birth no matter how good they are. These two calves were the only two I banded in that calf crop. I don't think it was only because of the sire.  I wish we could have an easier way to discuss calving ease besides by using birth weights. Birth weights are a component of calving ease, but as a leading cattle buyer said to me, " if I wanted lighter birth weights, the first thing I would do is select genetics that would produce shorter bodied calves". To me, this makes some sense. I have been told that taking 1 inch out of the rib of a new born calf represents 8-10 lbs, I have never been able to find research to prove if this is correct or not, but one person told me that Oregon State did some research that found this to be true.
Getting back to Fire Storm, I am pretty sure that we would be hearing about the horror stories if they were happening out there. So far, I have heard none. In regards to his sire, Waco, I looked back in my calving records and I have had 8 Waco sired calves born here. All unassisted with BWs of 90-102 lbs.

would a longer calf not be easier born than a deeper bodied calf?  i suppose its all about balance in everything

 

[mark tenenbaum]

I agree with that-but the hardest pulls ive seen were thick blocky calves that were too wide for the female attempting to have the calf O0

 

[Duncraggan]

Specifically what SH breed traits will this bull improve?  Birthweight, calving ease, fleshing ability, milk, marbling, fertility?  Because I have a pretty middle of the road herd of cows and this bull’s infusion would worsen each of these traits I mentioned.  So again I’ll ask: what would this ‘breed improver’  be improving?

With all due respect, I must stand up for XBAR here.  Fire Storm's January 2019 ASA EPD's are not impressive for me and I would also question what 'breed improver' traits he would bring to my herd.
Phenotypically he is very impressive though!

 

[idalee]

Fire Storm's EPD information is genomicaly enhanced which significantly increases accuracy and reduces the effect of cherry picking progeny.  Furthermore,  there are only 13 calves actually recorded so far.  When you look carefully at his EPD information,  he is clearly a below average bull.    For Growth and Maternal,  only 42% of traits are above breed average.  For Intake and Carcass traits,  all five are minus,  and when you look at the index values,  $CEZ is less than 20,  and $BMI is only slightly above 113.   

 

[beebe]

Do you have a lot of confidence in genomic testing of Shorthorn cattle?

 

[Medium Rare]

Do you have a lot of confidence in genomic testing of Shorthorn cattle?

Now there's a topic for a new thread.

Add recent epd movement to the topic and it could get interesting.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

Good points beebe and Medium-CONSIDER THE SOURCE O0