I need to think of an alias so nobody knows who I am! By the way, my very first show heifer was a granddaughter of Bapton Constructor. She never had a calf, though when we sold her she had blossomed into a 925 pound 30 month old. We started using Leader 21 about 5 years later so we could push our weaning weights closer to 500 pounds. Enough of the past. I am now officially too old to chase something, I know what cattle I like and the genetics I want and I don't care what anybody thinks. I lost quite a bit of time when we had our mature cow sale 5 years ago, but at least my wife is happy with the house remodeling project they helped pay for. We kept 10 heifer calves and 5 cows that were either too old to sell or had a disposition I didn't want to give somebody else. Since we're trying to make up for lost time, I'm keeping lots of heifers. I do not put a lot of faith in our EPDs, but I am trying to improve my odds for a successful calving season by using a bull from people I trust and one who's EPDs and family history at least indicate I won't have a train wreck. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I will not totally credit this bull if I never pull a calf or if I have 8 c-sections. Well, I might not like him very much if I have 8 c-sections, but you know what I mean. I have always had a good eye for cattle, can recite about any pedigree you want, and can even usually tell the difference between good hair cuts and real muscle. But, I have not achieved total success in predicting calving ease by visual appraisal. As it turns out, though, my full brother to Rose T90 has shown to be an easy calver so far. That is good since I have lots of young Trump line females to breed him to. Sorry to say I haven't done much experimenting the past few years. The only time I really had any trouble with calving ease, performance, etc., was when I used a few bulls 10-15 years ago based on what someone told me or a pretty picture. Some of those bulls couldn't have a high enough BEPD or low enough perfiormance EPDs to be truly accurate. On one occasion, I even personally observed a TH calf, though I didn't know what it really was for several years. Enjoy the conversation!
