Shorty hf bulls

[Okotoks]

If you set up your herd to concentrate on maternal traits you have to do two things in my opinion. No. 1 is you have to cull ruthlessly. If Lisa Janes show heifer doesn't breed back every you sell her. If her heifer has a bad udder you dump them. If they have a bad disposition you dump them. Its almost more about eliminating the bad ones then selecting for good ones. I don't know if people still index cattle like they used to but if you concentrate on udders,milk,pelvic region, moderate birth weights, disposition, and weaning weights you have more than enough on the plate to concentrate on. The problem is in small herds that Lisa janes show heifer never gets culled cause she cost 5,000$ or whar ever. Good or bad or right or wrong that is the truth. Stayability is boring and you don't win ribbons for it but it is the no. 1 profit determining factor in a maternal situation. The ave purebred herd length is what 6 years. Its the length of a family 4-h herd length of lasting. If you look at someone lke Keith Lauers herd. Hell he's 100 years old(just kidding). He has making these common sense selections for decades. There has been all this selection going on there for years. All it takes is commitment and time and disipline. It just seems crazy people in maternal breeds pushing big yearling epds. You can't select for every trait out there. Its immpossible. You can't be everything to everbody. You have to set paramiters and hopes to concentrate on 3 or 4 traits then spend 10 years working this over. Select and cull both.

You are right, the only way to get ahead is to cull. One should be hard on the bull calves and steer the bottom half or more! Years ago the breed got in trouble with udders and disposition and it took a few years to correct that up here anyways. What could be worse than trying to get a calf on a bad uddered cow that wants to eat you! The udder is the number one culling reason around here. After a while most of the heifers have good udders especially if you can select herd bulls based on their dam's udder. AJ we had a bull from Kansas out of a Keith Lauer cow. Got him in 1992 and the last daughter went to town last year. Still have grand daughters though! He was a useful bull in our program.

 

[aj]

If....if solid color is important(currently here it is) what about people concentrating on solid colors? Lovings, Wakuaru, and these herds hammmer this deal hard. If you set the color deal up on a index how hard does this deal get to be. Then you horned vs. polled. Genetic defect free vs. not. Homozygous polled. If a guy decided to select for all these things over a ten year deal it would be hard to meet your goals in most herds. However I am amazed at some of the say Red Angus breeders balanced epd stacking that goes on. If you breed mainly for the numbers, this takes real disicpline. They have some accuaracy in their numbers I think. If you set your herd up with indexes for every single trait out there you could have what 25  indexes. So essentially you just keep everything or throw out everything.jmo

 

[knabe]

people don't understand continuous variability.

all or nothing is much easier to complain about and drive opinion rather than progress.

 

[Will]

If you set up your herd to concentrate on maternal traits you have to do two things in my opinion. No. 1 is you have to cull ruthlessly. If Lisa Janes show heifer doesn't breed back every you sell her. If her heifer has a bad udder you dump them. If they have a bad disposition you dump them. Its almost more about eliminating the bad ones then selecting for good ones. I don't know if people still index cattle like they used to but if you concentrate on udders,milk,pelvic region, moderate birth weights, disposition, and weaning weights you have more than enough on the plate to concentrate on. The problem is in small herds that Lisa janes show heifer never gets culled cause she cost 5,000$ or whar ever. Good or bad or right or wrong that is the truth. Stayability is boring and you don't win ribbons for it but it is the no. 1 profit determining factor in a maternal situation. The ave purebred herd length is what 6 years. Its the length of a family 4-h herd length of lasting. If you look at someone lke Keith Lauers herd. Hell he's 100 years old(just kidding). He has making these common sense selections for decades. There has been all this selection going on there for years. All it takes is commitment and time and disipline. It just seems crazy people in maternal breeds pushing big yearling epds. You can't select for every trait out there. Its immpossible. You can't be everything to everbody. You have to set paramiters and hopes to concentrate on 3 or 4 traits then spend 10 years working this over. Select and cull both.

About 7 years ago we changed our breeding program.  We leave bulls in approximately 60 days.  Then we preg check the cows.  The opens go to town.  Just Tuesday I sold a hiefer that we turned down $3500 for a couple years ago( we do not sell very many heifers for that much money), it is very hard to sell those attractive females.  By doing this the uniformity of our cow herd has improved significantly.  Our frame size has came down a little but not a huge amount.  We do not have many 7 frame cows left and most are going to be around 6 now. By making this one culling decision it has dramatically improved our cow herd.

 

[Aussie]

Well put everyone all you have to do is look at the bottom bull in the current angus bull post an operation driven by carcass and figures. Sure he made $50 k but how many of us would want him. Here far to many unsound angus bulls were sold in the last 5 years because anything black sold now we are seeing buyers more cautious and starting to look at other options. All because of greed over sound selection pratices

 

[JCC]

If you set up your herd to concentrate on maternal traits you have to do two things in my opinion. No. 1 is you have to cull ruthlessly. If Lisa Janes show heifer doesn't breed back every you sell her. If her heifer has a bad udder you dump them. If they have a bad disposition you dump them. Its almost more about eliminating the bad ones then selecting for good ones. I don't know if people still index cattle like they used to but if you concentrate on udders,milk,pelvic region, moderate birth weights, disposition, and weaning weights you have more than enough on the plate to concentrate on. The problem is in small herds that Lisa janes show heifer never gets culled cause she cost 5,000$ or whar ever. Good or bad or right or wrong that is the truth. Stayability is boring and you don't win ribbons for it but it is the no. 1 profit determining factor in a maternal situation. The ave purebred herd length is what 6 years. Its the length of a family 4-h herd length of lasting. If you look at someone lke Keith Lauers herd. Hell he's 100 years old(just kidding). He has making these common sense selections for decades. There has been all this selection going on there for years. All it takes is commitment and time and disipline. It just seems crazy people in maternal breeds pushing big yearling epds. You can't select for every trait out there. Its immpossible. You can't be everything to everbody. You have to set paramiters and hopes to concentrate on 3 or 4 traits then spend 10 years working this over. Select and cull both.

AJ

I think you just nailed it. To me what you just illustrated has been my whole point all along. According to the ASA the average SH herd in the US is 13 head not enough to even get good proof on a bull in its useful lifetime if you only used him naturally. I think there are too many breeders with a similar though process as jaimiediamond and try to be everything to everyone. If I have set my cow herd up as you mention and then try to buy my next herd bull from Jamiediamond and their culling practices aren't the same as mine but I am led to believe that they are (jamiediamond and I have never done business I am not implying that they would deceive anyone but rather just using his comment as and example) I have just been set up to fail and it will most likely leave a sour taste in my mouth. Will I go back probably not will I abandon the breed if the taste is bad enough possibly and to me that is what SH breeders need to try to avoid. If you are asked the tough questions like do you feed creep, do you supplement your cows during the year, what are your culling protocols answer them honestly, it may not be what is best for you individually may be best for the breed and you may not get the sale but,  in the long run most will probably respect you more for telling them that your cattle aren't what they are looking for rather than taking the quick cash. That respect will payoff in the long run! 

Travis

 

[knabe]

who are 5 herds who use trump, sonny, gizmo genetics commercially that have more than 100 cows and who do some registrations?

 

[JCC]

If you set up your herd to concentrate on maternal traits you have to do two things in my opinion. No. 1 is you have to cull ruthlessly. If Lisa Janes show heifer doesn't breed back every you sell her. If her heifer has a bad udder you dump them. If they have a bad disposition you dump them. Its almost more about eliminating the bad ones then selecting for good ones. I don't know if people still index cattle like they used to but if you concentrate on udders,milk,pelvic region, moderate birth weights, disposition, and weaning weights you have more than enough on the plate to concentrate on. The problem is in small herds that Lisa janes show heifer never gets culled cause she cost 5,000$ or whar ever. Good or bad or right or wrong that is the truth. Stayability is boring and you don't win ribbons for it but it is the no. 1 profit determining factor in a maternal situation. The ave purebred herd length is what 6 years. Its the length of a family 4-h herd length of lasting. If you look at someone lke Keith Lauers herd. Hell he's 100 years old(just kidding). He has making these common sense selections for decades. There has been all this selection going on there for years. All it takes is commitment and time and disipline. It just seems crazy people in maternal breeds pushing big yearling epds. You can't select for every trait out there. Its immpossible. You can't be everything to everbody. You have to set paramiters and hopes to concentrate on 3 or 4 traits then spend 10 years working this over. Select and cull both.

You are right, the only way to get ahead is to cull. One should be hard on the bull calves and steer the bottom half or more! Years ago the breed got in trouble with udders and disposition and it took a few years to correct that up here anyways. What could be worse than trying to get a calf on a bad uddered cow that wants to eat you! The udder is the number one culling reason around here. After a while most of the heifers have good udders especially if you can select herd bulls based on their dam's udder. AJ we had a bull from Kansas out of a Keith Lauer cow. Got him in 1992 and the last daughter went to town last year. Still have grand daughters though! He was a useful bull in our program.

Okotoks

I will have to agree that culling has to take place but it has take place with both the bulls and heifers. I will disagree however and say that only 25% of both the heifers and bulls should be kept. My own personal opinion on keeping bulls intact is that I have to believe that he can be a bull that changes the breed in a positive way or he gets cut. That positive isn't necessarily for one specific trait or another. Needless to say we keep very few bulls intact but the ones that we do are pretty good. I think too many bulls are sold that should have been steered, an example of this has been the SH sale at the Iowa Beef Expo the last few years.

Travis

 

[sjcattleco]

If....if solid color is important(currently here it is) what about people concentrating on solid colors? Lovings, Wakuaru, and these herds hammmer this deal hard. If you set the color deal up on a index how hard does this deal get to be. Then you horned vs. polled. Genetic defect free vs. not. Homozygous polled. If a guy decided to select for all these things over a ten year deal it would be hard to meet your goals in most herds. However I am amazed at some of the say Red Angus breeders balanced epd stacking that goes on. If you breed mainly for the numbers, this takes real disicpline. They have some accuaracy in their numbers I think. If you set your herd up with indexes for every single trait out there you could have what 25  indexes. So essentially you just keep everything or throw out everything.jmo

The only thing a guy can do is find as close to the optimum male and female and line breed it!  To heck with the EPDS they are a waste of time... Color?  as far as shorthorn bulls go use as many masculine balanced  roan scurred bulls as you can stand and then when you are getting too much white come back with a red horned  bull and then start again...

 

[knabe]

The only thing a guy can do is find as close to the optimum male and female and line breed it!  To heck with the EPDS they are a waste of time... Color?  as far as shorthorn bulls go use as many masculine balanced  roan scurred bulls as you can stand and then when you are getting too much white come back with a red horned  bull and then start again...

people underestimate the power of recursive selection.

 

[Okotoks]

The only thing a guy can do is find as close to the optimum male and female and line breed it!  To heck with the EPDS they are a waste of time... Color?  as far as shorthorn bulls go use as many masculine balanced  roan scurred bulls as you can stand and then when you are getting too much white come back with a red horned  bull and then start again...

people underestimate the power of recursive selection.

I think I get this but could you give an example of a trait that recursive selection might affect? The site I ended up on is way too complicated for me! ???

 

[jaimiediamond]

If you set up your herd to concentrate on maternal traits you have to do two things in my opinion. No. 1 is you have to cull ruthlessly. If Lisa Janes show heifer doesn't breed back every you sell her. If her heifer has a bad udder you dump them. If they have a bad disposition you dump them. Its almost more about eliminating the bad ones then selecting for good ones. I don't know if people still index cattle like they used to but if you concentrate on udders,milk,pelvic region, moderate birth weights, disposition, and weaning weights you have more than enough on the plate to concentrate on. The problem is in small herds that Lisa janes show heifer never gets culled cause she cost 5,000$ or whar ever. Good or bad or right or wrong that is the truth. Stayability is boring and you don't win ribbons for it but it is the no. 1 profit determining factor in a maternal situation. The ave purebred herd length is what 6 years. Its the length of a family 4-h herd length of lasting. If you look at someone lke Keith Lauers herd. Hell he's 100 years old(just kidding). He has making these common sense selections for decades. There has been all this selection going on there for years. All it takes is commitment and time and disipline. It just seems crazy people in maternal breeds pushing big yearling epds. You can't select for every trait out there. Its immpossible. You can't be everything to everbody. You have to set paramiters and hopes to concentrate on 3 or 4 traits then spend 10 years working this over. Select and cull both.

You are right, the only way to get ahead is to cull. One should be hard on the bull calves and steer the bottom half or more! Years ago the breed got in trouble with udders and disposition and it took a few years to correct that up here anyways. What could be worse than trying to get a calf on a bad uddered cow that wants to eat you! The udder is the number one culling reason around here. After a while most of the heifers have good udders especially if you can select herd bulls based on their dam's udder. AJ we had a bull from Kansas out of a Keith Lauer cow. Got him in 1992 and the last daughter went to town last year. Still have grand daughters though! He was a useful bull in our program.

Okotoks

I will have to agree that culling has to take place but it has take place with both the bulls and heifers. I will disagree however and say that only 25% of both the heifers and bulls should be kept. My own personal opinion on keeping bulls intact is that I have to believe that he can be a bull that changes the breed in a positive way or he gets cut. That positive isn't necessarily for one specific trait or another. Needless to say we keep very few bulls intact but the ones that we do are pretty good. I think too many bulls are sold that should have been steered, an example of this has been the SH sale at the Iowa Beef Expo the last few years.

Travis

To avoid mentioning our own breeding program I thought I would give two examples of other Canadian Shorthorn breeders who have managed to breed for performance, as well as maternal into their herds.  Saskvalley Shorthorns http://saskvalleyshorthorns.com/  and Glenford Shorthorns http://www.bendershorthorns.com/.  These breeders have managed to focus on multiple traits creating excellent sound made cows that produce herd bulls which are sold to purebred and commercial breeders alike.  There cows are easy fleshing yet milk well with udders that are heavily culled.  I think that people can focus on one or two traits but I don't believe you should just ignore the others.  Since that in the end is what will keep lots of breeders scrambling to keep up with the commercial man's needs.

Depending on the quality of cattle in question should determine the amount of animals that need to be culled.  If a breeding program is successful then there should be a increased percentage of bulls available to the commercial man.  If the program isn't successful one might need to cull 100%. 

 

[Okotoks]

The pictures that Shortyisqueen posted on this thread Page 26 are pretty impressive and are one example why there is good reasons Shorthorns have a huge opportunity to grow market share in the commercial sector.Those are Shorthorn/hereford cross cows.
I have attached a couple of ads run in the only across Canada commercial cattle magazine. The first shows shorthorn sired calves out of Simmental base cows.The second shows five years worth of ultrasound on yearling bulls at a test station (over 250 bulls a year). The shorthorn sired bulls were from a variety of breeders and bloodlines and clearly had the best results even over the Angus. Over the last few years we have run a lot of full page and 2/3 page color ads giving some of the traits Shorthorn will give the commercial man. I think any breed has to focus on the commercial market, the cow/ calf, feeder and slaughter sectors. It is really hard to succeed without some acceptance in all three. You have to produce a product that works first in your local environment. It seems to me if you focus on where you need to be it's a lot easier to end up there. If calving ease is a concern in some programs I think there are a whole bunch of choices to help correct it. In fact there is a whole group focusing on the issue so I am pretty confident it will be solved. Those breeders who address it now will reap the benefit down the road because the Shorthorn is going to be a big part of the future in cattle production.

 

[knabe]

i would change the ad to say "red and white, the real color of marbling"

 

[Okotoks]

i would change the ad to say "red and white, the real color of marbling"

That's something we should do. Below is the same ad without the results just showing the roan color. But red and white would be a good addition.
Also attached an ad with Charolais cows with Shorthorn calves. The people that run this operation like the Shorthorn cross from their first two shorthorn bulls they bought two more Shorthorn two year olds this year.

 

[knabe]

like your dottie cow.  name a heifer dottie's hottie or dottie's hot totty or hot totty or good n hotty or good n hot.  probably wouldn't make a good name for a mature cow though.

 

[Okotoks]

like your dottie cow.  name a heifer dottie's hottie or dottie's hot totty or hot totty or good n hotty or good n hot.  probably wouldn't make a good name for a mature cow though.

Diamond Dottie The Hottie - might start a whole new cow family!

 

[Okotoks]

There's a couple of interesting bulls that are service sires in the Sun Country sale that are what would qualify as heifer bulls. Hillside Leader from Horseshoe Creek and Muridale Bonanza 85W from Macbeth and Uluru. The HC Touchdown bull looks like he will also be a heifer bull.

 

[knabe]

first bull is long.  2nd bull seems decidedly canadian preferenced, thicker while giving up some sharpness.

 

[thunderdownunder]

Love the thickness of that Muridale bull