"In-betweenie" bulls

[Mark H]

xxcc,

Of the bulls you mentioned Etula is the best of them.  I remember on the C to C testing he was competitive with the best Charolais bulls on both calving ease and growth.  The easiest calving bull of the original fullbloods was Coca Cola and the hardest Crack.
Maine Anjou breeders need to use different bulls in order to get some outcross and variation in types of cattle available.  Why can't Maine breeders get past bulls imported 40 years ago?  Every other breed imported from Europe has moved on with the descendants of the original imports having been improved on for all traits.  Why not Maines?
Alta beef has some different fullblood bulls you may want to try.  In the longer term I would import some semen from  bulls in France to get some outcross in order to get the breed moving forward.  Right now in the commericial beef market Maines  are looked at as a breed that could have been a contender but blew their chance.  What is the way forward for the Maine Anjou breed outside the clubby market i.e. selling bulls to commercial cattlemen?

 

[knabe]

for one reason, from a small survey, carcass has been bred out of maine's.  also, frame was over selected for, especially in canada, and to keep using "udated" pedigrees from tall cattle with the carcass taken out is pointless.

the bulls in france have done the same thing.  their cattle are too big, too saturated with double muscling and to narrow in their gene pool as only 35 or 40 bulls/year get approved from a herd of 30-50,000 registered.  not only that, but they have been selecting for a market niche that is completely different than what may or may not be needed in the US.  their current overselection on size probably is not helpful in walking larger pastures in america.

in US Maines, carcass, milk and size have been severely selected against.  it's hard to put all 3 of those back in with the current gene pool of blacks.  the only way out for any breed, is to sell to the commercial operator.  cattle are getting too expensive for their numbers as a show breed compared to goats, sheep, pigs.  not only that, but cattle are getting too straight and tight in their pasterns. 

 

[Mark H]

You are missing my point.  Right now the Maine Anjou breed has very poor market penetration in the  commericial bull market anywhere in North America.  Even in the niche market for high growth cattle with milk production the breed is basically AWOL.  I can count on my fingers the number of Maine Anjou bull sales this spring with more than a handful of bulls and performance information .  In the end of the day purebred cattle exist to produce bulls for commercial cows.  With out a commercial bull market breeds tend to die out.
Semen is being imported for other breeds from Europe and used successfully to produce cattle accepted by commercial producers.  Some Fleckvieh and Full french Charolais bulls are the ones that come to mind.  The key is to know what you want before you select your cattle or semen.  Most cattle in Europe will not work here but some do work and work well.  Something else to keep in mind:  Some of the continental breeds have sold semen and cattle from North American type purebreds in Europe with great market acceptance.  Has Europe ever purchased a North American raised purebred or fullblood Maine Anjou (a polled animal perhaps)?

 

[xxcc]

xxcc,

Of the bulls you mentioned Etula is the best of them.  I remember on the C to C testing he was competitive with the best Charolais bulls on both calving ease and growth.  The easiest calving bull of the original fullbloods was Coca Cola and the hardest Crack.
Maine Anjou breeders need to use different bulls in order to get some outcross and variation in types of cattle available.  Why can't Maine breeders get past bulls imported 40 years ago?  Every other breed imported from Europe has moved on with the descendants of the original imports having been improved on for all traits.  Why not Maines?
Alta beef has some different fullblood bulls you may want to try.  In the longer term I would import some semen from  bulls in France to get some outcross in order to get the breed moving forward.  Right now in the commericial beef market Maines  are looked at as a breed that could have been a contender but blew their chance.  What is the way forward for the Maine Anjou breed outside the clubby market i.e. selling bulls to commercial cattlemen?

Mark H,

You are making some very blatant assumptions about me and my program.  If you came and looked at some of my cattle, your eyes would fall out of your head.

Etula being the best is a matter of opinion.  Are you so sure Cunia wasn’t the best?  Are you so sure CSBS Echo or Duke of Heaven calved easier than Crack?

40 years ago, there was a lot less fullblood cows.  40 years ago, fullblood Maines were used for a different eye (mature size).  40 year ago, greater than 50% of the semen bred for the first 3 years was bred to dairy cattle.  I don’t know about you, but to me, a dairy foundation does not prove to be the best for commercial cattlemen, particularly in carcass traits.

Maybe it doesn’t hurt to reinvent the wheel the correct way.

The fullblood bulls at Alta are not what I’m after.  For 95% of the people doing it, marketing semen on a bull is like a penis extension for wanna be cattle producers.  The other 5% are doing it to impact the breed in a substantial beneficial manner.  What experience do you have with those animals at Alta? I have 5 fullblood bulls here that would probably blow the doors off those at Alta.  I probably castrate more good calves every year than those bulls combined.  I’m in the heart of black cattle country.  There’s no market here for fullbloods. Maybe blacks sired by fullbloods, but not anything other than blacks.

And…you want to lecture me on bulls from France?  Give me a break.  Have you seen that junk?

Commercial cattle man?  They want easy calving sires with calves that weigh up, females that milk, most if not all are polled and most if not all are black.  There are the exceptions, but that is generally the rule.  That is what I and a few other breeders of the breed are working toward, but there is only so far bulls like Ali and Sooner can go…and even that Sooner is on the weak end of scrotal.  Other breeds, Charolais may have done it, but you can kiss my ass on Simmental.  Hard calving lunk headed SOBs.  Yes, they milk, but you need a live calf to suck the teats don’t you?

What have Salers done?  Blonde d’Aquitaine?  Pinzgauer?  Limosin?  Gelbvieh?  The only ones I do see that have made an impact are Charolais and Simmental, mostly because of how they started out.

Commercial way forward, you should pay more attention to breeders like Dennis Garwood, Blaine Nagel, Gib Yardley, and the like.  Watch the results of O’hara’s upcoming sale.  Yes, it is not the Angus breed, or even the Simmental, but things are changing.

I think you need to breed some of your cattle to a Marketman son.  You might be shocked!

 

[PAshowman]

I have also heard some good things out of the Shiver bull. hes also known for good calving ease.  Theres alot of positives going on in the showring for Hairy Bear.

 

[Mark H]

xxcc,

My comments were not directed towards you or your program. I don't know enough about your program to many any comments on it.  I was just making some comments on some commonly available AI bulls from over 40 years ago.  My comments on Etula were made because the calves i saw were good and he did quite well on the Conception to Consumer progeny test program in around 1972.  I wish you could see data from all the bulls are familiar with compared on functional traits when used on commercial cows it would be interesting for you.
In your reply you reveal that you feel you are cutting fullblood bulls that are better than those listed as AI sires on with of the few AI companies that stocks fullblood Maine semen.  My challenge to you and other Maine breeders is how do you develop a commercial bull market?  What steps do you need to take?
I have met very few people that have collected a bull to satisfy his own ego.  They do so in order to:
1.  Allow all owners of a syndicated or multiple partners on  bull to use him particularly if only person has possession.
2.  Establish an insurance policy so if a bull dies his genetics will still be available
3.  Let him be used in in vitro embryo transplant programs.
4.  Make more money through semen sales
Finally what can the Maine Anjou breed do to out grow the clubby market?

 

[xxcc]

Finally what can the Maine Anjou breed do to out grow the clubby market?

get rid of the Mainetainer program for starters. 

to steer the breed somewhere else than the show ring, my fear is that it may be nearly too late...everything in the US is based on the 'right now' vision and one year cycles/periods.  nobody (very few people) seems to have a lifelong vision.

 

[Jill]

Finally what can the Maine Anjou breed do to out grow the clubby market?

get rid of the Mainetainer program for starters. 

to steer the breed somewhere else than the show ring, my fear is that it may be nearly too late...everything in the US is based on the 'right now' vision and one year cycles/periods.  nobody (very few people) seems to have a lifelong vision.

At this point the Maine-Anjou breed and the clubby market are one in the same, it would take a total reorganization and I don't see that ever happening. 
My fees keep going up and customer service keeps going down, not a good direction for any breed!  Registation % keeps going down, not a good direction for any breed!

 

[xxcc]

At this point the Maine-Anjou breed and the clubby market are one in the same.

That's a matter of opinion.  That's a midwest view maybe.

My fees keep going up and customer service keeps going down, not a good direction for any breed!  Registation % keeps going down, not a good direction for any breed!

I told you long ago, there needs to be an American Club Calf Association.  The % keeps changing to try to draw new revenue.  I, as well, think the direction of the AMAA is that regard is a wrong one.  Pepsi's business motto is pureplay.  They are succesful, we should take note.  Problem is, and I agree, we can't turn back.  This goes back to an old post I was part of stating we need a true purebred/fullblood association and nothing else.  AND, the minimum purebreds should be 15/16 females and 31/32 males. End of story.

 

[Jill]

While that may be a midwest view, last I checked most of the Maine cattle are in the midwest.  You don't have to look any further than Steerplanet, whenever someone comes on here and asks about a Maine bull they are referred to as a clubby bull.  I'm not saying it's right or how it should be, just how a majority of the people you talk to see them.  We as a breed haven't done a very good job of marketing when it comes to the commercial sector.
I don't have a problem with the Maintainer program, it works well for us, whether you want to call it American Club Calf or what ever it IS a crossbred calf plain and simple.
I do have a huge problem with the decision to drop the purebred percentages, it has homogenized what was great about the breed to the point they aren't much different than any other % breed of cattle out there, I'd guess there aren't many of the 15/16 or 31/32 cattle even out there anymore and I think that's sad.