Shorty hf bulls

[Jacob B]

Sue, I'll have to ask him.  Your dad is still one of my ALL TIME favorites to listen to about the farming side of cattle.  If I can ever learn half as much about cattle as him I will have accomplished a great feat.  Would love to carry around a tape recorder and just listen to him talk about the past as he does chores for a good week or so. 

Just returned from herd visits - beautiful weather up North!

I was speed reading but noticed Calrossie Diadem - posted, my Dad ( 81) felt that bull was going to be a hard calver, shoulder shape, etc. Jacob B ask your grandpa but he line bred the famed bull through purchases made from bilmar farms. Ask him ....  Dr Beaver was looking for Diadem semen years back and if any one is reading - send him a vial.
Killearn Max Juggler - again according to dad ( we had a son of him) bred 90 cows and won the Chicago International that fall.
Im not complaining our business is good.

 

[Okotoks]

It seems that at the least we all agree that there are some calving issues. Getting back to the main thread what bulls will improve the calving? Is the difficulty all birth weight or do small pelvis and heifers that are too fat also play a part. I have to think that there are bulls available that would drop the birth weight. I think you would also want a bull that would make daughters with better pelvic size and structure. It seems to me that one of the challenges of being a purebred cattle producer is that just when you think you have it all figured out good old “genetics” likes to throw a curve ball. For kids looking for a live calf out of a show heifer what about bulls like Clark or Columbus? (Their calving ease numbers are impressive and honestly they were never bred to big powerful heifers like we see out today) Probably there are current bulls in addition to 7026, Mission, JPJ, and Captain Obvious that would offer good options; we just have to get the info. I do know that it’s a lot better to get that first calf alive and on the ground than to breed for another winner that dies at birth. It would be an added bonus if these heifer bulls sired replacement females.

 

[Aussie]

Do you know anything about the Waimata bull Schaff's is using? He looks cool to me. Daughters out of that bull crossed on some shorthorn, RA sure seem like a good deal to me.    Thanks mate!

I don't want to hijack the thread to good for that. The bull you are talking about will fit in well with the cattle that are being breed there at the moment thick and very sound(great feet). As far as frame I like to keep my cows 6  middle of the road. I would rather run two 600kg cows that wean two 300kg calves than three 400kg cows that wean three 200kg calves. In a fattening  operation bigger cattle go down the road quicker.

 

[aj]

Making cows exercise? I have heard in all now. Whats next putting treadmills in barns so cows won't have to leave the showbarns.

 

[jaimiediamond]

Exercise whlie one is pregnant has been proven to be beneficial for all mammals including cattle....  If you like I could post links AJ to verify these facts. 

 

[Hilltop]

Making cows exercise? I have heard in all now. Whats next putting treadmills in barns so cows won't have to leave the showbarns.

Last time I talked with commercial cattlemen alot of them say they feed AWAY from water so THEIR cows have to walk and they swear by that for keeping their calving issues down to a minimum!!

 

[Okotoks]

Making cows exercise? I have heard in all now. Whats next putting treadmills in barns so cows won't have to leave the showbarns.

My dad always maintained it was way healthier and less calving problems if the cows got excercise. Until a pasture we rented got sold for mega bucks we used to start the winter feeding the cows in the shelter of a willow grove where the trees stopped almost all the wind. At 30  or 40 below the cows would still be comfortable. They all had to walk a mile round trip for water. A lot of people up here are going to later calving and you rarely hear of cows with calving issues when they are grazing(Exercise!) Speaking of cows in show barns I didn't think you had cow calf classes in the States. I know they did years ago.(Other than a few 2 year olds at Denver) I never have understood why you wouldn't want to see what the female looked like once they started doing what we breed them for.My favourite classes at Canadian Western Agribition are the cow calf.

 

[aj]

On the across the breed epd deal I think I have figured it out. If you are comparing a Shorthorn bull to a simmi bull you do the following. Take the Shortys epd and add the recommended 6.1 factor. Then take the simmis epd and add the 5.5 factor. So if the shortie was 2 his bw epd would be 8.1  If the simmis epd was 4 his factored epd would be 9.5. So in theory the 8.1 might be better on calving ease. As far as exercising cows. Maybe a exercise video could be produced to pump them up for aroebics. I think Ernest Tubbs music might be acceptable and appropiate. This might help them get into the mooooooood. Maybe the supply outfits might start developing excise machines and equipment for cattle. We could put little exercise tracks in the barns so cows could exercise indoors in nasty weather. Or maybe we could MAKE THEM GO MAKE A LIVING OUT ON CORNSTALKS. Or maybe not.

 

[justintime]

aj will get a real kick out of this, but when I was in college, neons ago, the Animal Science dept and the Western Colllege of Vet Medicine had developed  a tread mill and used it experimently with cattle and horses. I was really surprised that the cattle they used in one test, actually enjoyed walking on it. I remember them saying that it took about 3 attempts on average to get the cattle to walk on it properly. After a few days they would actually walk to the treadmill and stand on it and wait for it to start. They seemed to enjoy it. They also did some experiments with horses on it. Not sure what happened to it but I can only assume it went the way of the Doodoo bird.

 

[aj]

The treadmill would do my fat butt some good....unless I had a heart attack on it.

 

[oakbar]

I don't know if they are still being used, but 20 years ago when we were showing horses all the show barns of the "big boys" had treadmills for their halter horses.  I've seen them used dozens of times in many different barns.

 

[LostFarmer]

I feed the cattle a half mile from the water.  It is real easy to get them to walk a mile a day.  Not rocket science.  LF

 

[Okotoks]

There are management tools we can use to make calving go easier and excercise is one that we use.  If we are selling bulls we need to be selecting for calving ease as who knows the conditions the herd the bull goes to is going to be kept in. I think the Australians are on the right track including gestation length in their evaluations.

 

[Dale]

This week we calved out, unassisted & on pasture, two daughters of Sneed's 034 bull to KL Double Duty, a very low BW bull.  The birth weights were 58 and 66 pounds on the heifer calves.  Both dams (4164948 and 4164947) were less than 24 months of age.  When we began using Double Duty someone said not to let Dad look at the calves for a month--later on they catch up.  Last fall we had a W. Gold Mine 2109 daughter have a keeper from Double Duty, as a first calf heifer. 

Both these 034 daughters have Rodeo back in the pedigree--his BW dilutes down better than some of the larger BW sires.  Actual BW on the two 034 daughters were 74 and 75.  I can recall two first calf heifers bred to Red Angus that had a slight assist at birth--one of those 2 calves weighed 68 pounds.  Calving ease can be as good in Shorthorns as in most other breeds.

Shorthorns tend to have a large pelvis, so a larger calf can be born without assistance if there is not an abnormal presentation.  We calved out only two first-calf heifers to Jazz, and they were unassisted.  The birth EPD numbers have merit to them--is CE DIR really an even better indicator?    What is everyone's experience using CE DIR's to get a calf without assistance?  One of the heaviest calves we ever weighed was from a bull with CE DIR of 3.0+  Come to think of it, that big calf and all others from that sire may have been unassisted.

 

[justintime]

There are management tools we can use to make calving go easier and excercise is one that we use.  If we are selling bulls we need to be selecting for calving ease as who knows the conditions the herd the bull goes to is going to be kept in. I think the Australians are on the right track including gestation length in their evaluations.

I could not agree more. Gestation length is the easiest way to reduce BWs. I think that is why our Mist's Return bull was as easy calving as he was. His calves had the shortest gestation lengths we have had from any sire we have used and they averaged 275 days on the ones we had breeding dates on. I have mentioned this before on here, that the sire of Mist's Return, Highfield Irish Mist was at least 10 days shorter gestation than our second Irish import, IDS Duke of Dublin. While we never had any real calving issues with Duke, he definitely had bigger calves.

I think if we could start to identify gestation lengths that are even a few days shorter than average, I think we could develop some calving ease sires that still have adequate performance. That is another reason, I am not a fan of inducing cows or heifers. I think it gives a distorted gestation length. I also think Mother Nature has to have some part on deciding when a baby should be born - for both the sake of the baby and the momma cow.

If the Aussie's can identify gestation lengths, I am sure we can here as well.

 

[sue]

This week we calved out, unassisted & on pasture, two daughters of Sneed's 034 bull to KL Double Duty, a very low BW bull.  The birth weights were 58 and 66 pounds on the heifer calves.  Both dams (4164948 and 4164947) were less than 24 months of age.  When we began using Double Duty someone said not to let Dad look at the calves for a month--later on they catch up.  Last fall we had a W. Gold Mine 2109 daughter have a keeper from Double Duty, as a first calf heifer. 

Both these 034 daughters have Rodeo back in the pedigree--his BW dilutes down better than some of the larger BW sires.  Actual BW on the two 034 daughters were 74 and 75.  I can recall two first calf heifers bred to Red Angus that had a slight assist at birth--one of those 2 calves weighed 68 pounds.  Calving ease can be as good in Shorthorns as in most other breeds.

Shorthorns tend to have a large pelvis, so a larger calf can be born without assistance if there is not an abnormal presentation.  We calved out only two first-calf heifers to Jazz, and they were unassisted.  The birth EPD numbers have merit to them--is CE DIR really an even better indicator?    What is everyone's experience using CE DIR's to get a calf without assistance?  One of the heaviest calves we ever weighed was from a bull with CE DIR of 3.0+  Come to think of it, that big calf and all others from that sire may have been unassisted.

Dale
How are the 034 dams doing ? Breed back quickly as first calf heifers? CE dir EPD probably changes the most - check out the new epds on asa.

Trevor Grey-
I went through 2 commerical herds and one club calf herd, county fair and a lovely wine bar . My birthday getaway.

. But the best economically trait would be calving internal(s) plus or minus 370 days... hard calvers usually wont breed back soon enough for commerical type operations.

Gestation length is more difficult to determine in Naturally service. Seems to me hard breeders, hard calvers go hand in hand.  Usually the best bull offerings will post this in the catalog(s).

 

[Okotoks]

This week we calved out, unassisted & on pasture, two daughters of Sneed's 034 bull to KL Double Duty, a very low BW bull.  The birth weights were 58 and 66 pounds on the heifer calves.  Both dams (4164948 and 4164947) were less than 24 months of age.  When we began using Double Duty someone said not to let Dad look at the calves for a month--later on they catch up.  Last fall we had a W. Gold Mine 2109 daughter have a keeper from Double Duty, as a first calf heifer. 

Both these 034 daughters have Rodeo back in the pedigree--his BW dilutes down better than some of the larger BW sires.  Actual BW on the two 034 daughters were 74 and 75.  I can recall two first calf heifers bred to Red Angus that had a slight assist at birth--one of those 2 calves weighed 68 pounds.  Calving ease can be as good in Shorthorns as in most other breeds.

Dale
How are the 034 dams doing ? Breed back quickly as first calf heifers? CE dir EPD probably changes the most - check out the new epds on asa.

Sue are you referring to this bull? His numbers are pretty impressive! A trait leader for Calving Ease Direct, CE Daughters, Birth Weight and bonus a trait leader for Yearling Weight. You have got to like that combination.
RS DV729 01 034 04  x4078267

 

[sue]

I do love this bull... it took me two yrs to convince Rob Sneed to partner with me and sell semen. His dam is on our web page or you can check her out on Paintvalley Farms.  034 was  photoed on pasture covering over 50 hd, he has been used heavy in both fall and spring breeding. this pic taken last July. His dam was pic at age 10 last fall. Rob Sneed Shorthorns, Sedaila MO.

 

[Dale]

The 034 daughters are easy-fleshing and are doing exactly what first calf heifers should do--milk, keep a close watch on the calves, etc.  They looked very broody ahead of calving and were springing heavily, so the unassisted births were not surprising.  034 has a lot of good things in one package--performance with calving ease, carcass quality, two of the all-time greats as grandsires, color, right-sized (as they say at Subaru when they make their cars fit us Americans), and a solid program behind him.  034 is an excellent fit in many ways.

 

[Okotoks]

I do love this bull... it took me two yrs to convince Rob Sneed to partner with me and sell semen. His dam is on our web page or you can check her out on Paintvalley Farms.  034 was  photoed on pasture covering over 50 hd, he has been used heavy in both fall and spring breeding. this pic taken last July. His dam was pic at age 10 last fall. Rob Sneed Shorthorns, Sedaila MO.

Sue
He certainly looks like a bull that does a lot of things right. Did you see the link to The Hill Country Sale Catalogue on the Steer Planet Banner. They have your Lakeside Ripper bull as a service sire to some Six S Panther daughters and some Matlock Rebel Rauser daughters. That should be stacking calving ease into a pedigree!