Schrag sale

[J2F]

How many commercial outfits go to "show cattle" herds to make purchases?
How many "show cattle" herds trailer up loads of bred heifers and market them as commercial?
How many people buy the skinny bull at the bull sale? And how many the supplemented fleshy one? :

As far as Shorthorns, commercially there seems to be a stigma but it is time to quit blaming "show cattle" for it and do something about it. All it takes is money, advertisement and patients and it would come around. The product is good you just have to convince people to try it and will take off. We need to keep up the Data collection to help support the advertisements and the breed will excel in both avenues  again.  IMO.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

I think its pretty clear that the powers that be are changing gears somewhat as far as basic functional types anyhow-you wont see them show much,but they are selling. The: Jungles,Marty Loving,Kieth Lauer, Sue,Larson,4-5 breeders in Minnesota,Sneeds,and other Missouri outfits,Kaper,Mclean,just to name a few:are selling these type of cattle and getting  hopefully a fairer piece of the pie for all thier years of effort.I like the idea of Jungles using Maine (Red Reward) on the Lauer-Mclean type cattle.So Sullivan is using Red Reward and Jazz,and had a JPJ bull show well at Louiseville. Enough breeders have bought Red Rewards etc from him that they will be available to everybody: vicariously,through semen sales.There will allways be a divide between show and performance cattle-but the largest use by far-and the spark that brought Shorthorns back (for awhile) were the clubby bulls.It doesnt matter if you liked em etc.-but I think just about anyone who had been around any beef cattle,had heard of Double Stuff. Yea Yea-there are also some way bad black- carriers-cow killers too. I think that end is also very important-because its the only way Shorts ever really got used in the last 40 years down here in the US,in any appreciable volume PERIOD.Now-the show cattle and commercially oriented people can come after me LOL. O0

 

[mark tenenbaum]

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong. /// I allways thought there needed to be a central feedlot-and all Shorthorn breeders would send every sale barn -and or feeder there-and it should be financed by the big money boppers-with retained ownership guaranteed to any registered Shorthorn.Thats 1 way to produce a somewhat documented end product-with a little volume. Anuual dues could support part of this-by raising them to $1000  (lol) O0

 

[RyanChandler]

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong.

What bull would be the cornerstone of your initial outlay?

 

[blackdiamond]

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong.

Find me the pasture- and I'm on my way there... O0

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong.

What bull would be the cornerstone of your initial outlay?

TLM Redline crossed onto Roanoke Flashback crossed with JJC Wildside.  and all turned in with Robstens Grand Slam as walking herd bull...  (plus a few other to tinker with)

 

[J2F]

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong.

Anyone who is a member of a shorthorn association is an investor IMO. They(the association) need to advertise and market  "the breed" as a whole and each farm needs to advertise and market their cattle in their own way promoting the breed. IMO
But I am right there with you. I pitch shorthorns to every fat cat I meet.LOL I would be the best farm manager or herdsman they would ever know>lol in my mind anyway.  <rock>

 

[RyanChandler]

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong.

Find me the pasture- and I'm on my way there... O0

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong.

What bull would be the cornerstone of your initial outlay?

TLM Redline crossed onto Roanoke Flashback crossed with JJC Wildside.  and all turned in with Robstens Grand Slam as walking herd bull...  (plus a few other to tinker with)

Id clone this guy: His calves were easily the best ones at Leveldale this past summer.

 

[RyanChandler]

How many commercial outfits go to "show cattle" herds to make purchases?
How many "show cattle" herds trailer up loads of bred heifers and market them as commercial?
How many people buy the skinny bull at the bull sale? And how many the supplemented fleshy one? :

As far as Shorthorns, commercially there seems to be a stigma but it is time to quit blaming "show cattle" for it and do something about it. All it takes is money, advertisement and patients and it would come around. The product is good you just have to convince people to try it and will take off. We need to keep up the Data collection to help support the advertisements and the breed will excel in both avenues  again.    IMO.

Problem is, the "show cattle" herds wont admit their animals are not suitable in the real world. They try to present themselves having the best of both worlds.  This is where my hang up is. 

I have continually proposed  mandatory performance reporting within the shorthorn breed.  Too many people in this breed are only here to "show" and have no interest in performance therefore they WONT report the data.  I spoke with ASA reps about why we don't have mandatory reporting.  The response, "If we make it mandatory reporting, the people that are now unwilling to report the data will just lie and make up data to appease the association." - is lame at best.  Perhaps it sheds light on the type of people they're catering to. 

 

[aj]

j2f...your premise is flawed in my opinion. Advertising is not the answer on the showring cattle. The commercial guy doesn't want 1800# cows. He doesn't want cows that need show feed to survive. He doesn't want to use a bull that throws 120# calves. jmo

 

[justintime]

j2f...your premise is flawed in my opinion. Advertising is not the answer on the showring cattle. The commercial guy doesn't want 1800# cows. He doesn't want cows that need show feed to survive. He doesn't want to use a bull that throws 120# calves. jmo

Again I am going to take exception to this. It does no one any good to just sit at home and complain about those evil show ring people. If you want to get commercial acceptance, do something about it. I get the feeling that many breeders feel it is the breed association's job to do all the promotion and to make the breed more acceptable to the commerical producer. In my opinion that is not the job of a breed association, but this is the job of producers like you and me. The breed association should be providing some tools for each breeder to use, such as the sire summary, performance and carcass data, and possibly some printed material, but I think it is the responsibility of breeders to do the promotion in their area. Many years ago, a group of Red Angus breeders in Canada started the Canadian Red Angus Promotional Society. It was a group of Red Angus breeders who decided to try to improve their market share by working together on promoting Red Angus cattle.When this group formed, Red Angus had a tiny percentage of useage in the industry. The breed association had nothing to do with this group. There was an annual membership fee of $500 for each breeder who wanted to belong in this group and they literally flooded the industry with Red Angus promotional ads and each member was listed in the ads on a rotating basis. The annual fees eventually increased, to allow more and more promotion( I think it eventually got up to $1500/member/ year), but I think this group was largely responsible for the growth in popularity of Red Angus catttle in Canada. Every member benefited through improved sales and improved acceptance of their product. Their plan worked and they reaped the benefits of working together.

I have heard these complaints for decades now, about how the breed association caters to the show people, and does not do enough in the commercial beef industry. That may indeed be true, but that should not even be a point of discussion. If you want to improve the commercial acceptance of your herd, first and foremost, produce some cattle that you think will work in the commerciial industry. Secondly, gather breeders of like mind, and thirdly, put your money where your mouth is. If you believe in your product, you should have no problem in investing in promoting it. Promotion and advertising are as important an ingredient in every breeding program as any other part. Maybe I am just becoming a crouchedy old man but I am really starting to get tired of breeders who just complain and never do anything to improve their situation. I am not making these comments about people who have posted here, but these are general comments as I hear some people *****ing and moaning about some of these things wherever I go. These people usually complain about a breeder who has seen success, and I guess they pick on them because they are easy targets.

Personally I am pleased the Shorthorn breed has a great show ring sector. I will agree 100% that some of these cattle won't make it in some conditions. But I will say that there are some that will work. I do not for even a brief second, think that we do not have some calving ease lines. I happen to think we have quite a few genetic lines that offer calving ease without sacrificing too much performance. I have raised several other breeds side by side my Shorthorns, and to be very honest, I had far more calving issues in almost every other breed I raised than I ever had with my Shorthorns.  If you are raising Shorthorns and are having lots of calving issues or huge birth weights then I think you better take a serious look at the genetics you are using and make some changes.

 

[blackdiamond]

Here is some shorthorns, that I think are getting pretty close to being something in the middle of the road.

No grain here in these animals.

In relation to the topic of hand, the top bull calf is sired by SS What's Up.
The 2nd picture is a July, April, and Sept heifer calves on stalks- after being on only grass through the drought.
3rd is a herd bull mentioned above, again only on grass through the drought.
the last two are a couple of breds. 

 

[blackdiamond]

another bred, and a bull calf that looked interesting at picture time.
the bull calf we'll be turning in with all the heifer calves hopefully next week.  "Grand Slam", basically, a 3/4 brother to the champion shorthorn plus bull at MO State fair.  He's a Redline x Zoom Zoom (Vortec/ Gizmo/ Elbee cow) back on a different Elbee cow.  Basically, that puts him triple bred Elbee "Royal" cow line.
and lastly, just another bull calf.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Find me a investor or investors. I'll build the biggest herd of shorthorns known to man. I'll do all I can to prove the stigma wrong.
[/

What bull would be the cornerstone of your initial outlay?

I respectfully decline to publicly state what bull. To many people have taken my ideas and ran. I'll tell ya privately. Some breeders believe it's nobodies damn business what bull they are using or plan on using. Not sure I agree but I'm not letting anybody take my ideas for free anymore.



XBAR has a valid point. How many times do you read in a sale book that this bull can work in the ring or the pasture. It happens a lot. It's a great hook to get someone interested. Your getting the best of both worlds. How can you go wrong.

 

[aj]

I get Shorthorn sale catalogs in the mail. 4 out of 5 of them don't list birth weights! That is insane. That is a problem. You can run around the tree three times and give a speech.....but that is a problem for the breed to gain commercial acceptance. Period. That is a fact. The spade is a spade. The emperor has no clothes on. Period.

 

[justintime]

I get Shorthorn sale catalogs in the mail. 4 out of 5 of them don't list birth weights! That is insane. That is a problem. You can run around the tree three times and give a speech.....but that is a problem for the breed to gain commercial acceptance. Period. That is a fact. The spade is a spade. The emperor has no clothes on. Period.

My wife produces a lot of sale catalogs. I just grabbed the last 5 she did this fall, of which 4 were Angus and  1 was a Simmental sale. One of these is a dispersal and has almost 700 head in it and is 244 pages. All of them show EPDs for BW but none have listed the  actual BWs. She only includes the information the owners want in their sale catalogs.   So I don't think this is just a Shorthorn thing when BWs are not reported in sale catalogs. I agree that it would be nice to see the actual BW listed.

 

[J2F]

j2f...your premise is flawed in my opinion. Advertising is not the answer on the show ring cattle. The commercial guy doesn't want 1800# cows. He doesn't want cows that need show feed to survive. He doesn't want to use a bull that throws 120# calves. jmo

Shorthorn is a maternal breed with high marbling characteristics and is docile that can add too any F1 cross you put it with.  That is what you advertise. There is a lot more herds bred for performance than pure "show cattle"  that you don't give credit to. I think my premise is good, it will be a long battle, it won't happen over night but we can change peoples mind and see what we have to offer...even you AJ.  ;D 

Side note... I am not saying there has never been 120" calf but it is not as regular as you make it out to be at times. Even in the 100% show cattle herds it is not that common and again even in the Angus breed people who want commercial cattle go to commercial herd producers and those who want show cattle go to the show cattle producer.

 

[blackdiamond]

j2f...your premise is flawed in my opinion. Advertising is not the answer on the show ring cattle. The commercial guy doesn't want 1800# cows. He doesn't want cows that need show feed to survive. He doesn't want to use a bull that throws 120# calves. jmo

Shorthorn is a maternal breed with high marbling characteristics and is docile that can add too any F1 cross you put it with.  That is what you advertise. There is a lot more herds bred for performance than pure "show cattle"  that you don't give credit to. I think my premise is good, it will be a long battle, it won't happen over night but we can change peoples mind and see what we have to offer...even you AJ.  ;D 

Side note... I am not saying there has never been 120" calf but it is not as regular as you make it out to be at times. Even in the 100% show cattle herds it is not that common and again even in the Angus breed people who want commercial cattle go to commercial herd producers and those who want show cattle go to the show cattle producer.

Around here, it's amazing to see a calf born, unassisted, and up nursing-- then weight it, and it's 110 or 120.  Never thought it to be that big.  and I don't have 'big' cows...

 

[J2F]

j2f...your premise is flawed in my opinion. Advertising is not the answer on the show ring cattle. The commercial guy doesn't want 1800# cows. He doesn't want cows that need show feed to survive. He doesn't want to use a bull that throws 120# calves. jmo

Shorthorn is a maternal breed with high marbling characteristics and is docile that can add too any F1 cross you put it with.  That is what you advertise. There is a lot more herds bred for performance than pure "show cattle"  that you don't give credit to. I think my premise is good, it will be a long battle, it won't happen over night but we can change peoples mind and see what we have to offer...even you AJ.  ;D 

Side note... I am not saying there has never been 120" calf but it is not as regular as you make it out to be at times. Even in the 100% show cattle herds it is not that common and again even in the Angus breed people who want commercial cattle go to commercial herd producers and those who want show cattle go to the show cattle producer.

Around here, it's amazing to see a calf born, unassisted, and up nursing-- then weight it, and it's 110 or 120.  Never thought it to be that big.  and I don't have 'big' cows...

I have seen several 105 pop out no problem but I have also had the "come help me weigh this thing it got to be 130" and it weighed in at 92.

 

[aj]

So let me get this right. It is ok for calves to weigh 92-120 pounds at birth? We need to educate the dumb commercial guys.....the ones who are three generations deep in a ranch?