trevorgreycattleco said:
TMJ I have only had cattle for 11 years so I may still be a little green behind the ears. I have had all the Trump genetics I can handle thank you. I had about 40 brood cows all with Trump in there, Rodeo Drive, you name it, I have tried it. Your a show jock so I'm assumming your cattle are on full feed all the time so you don't really care about cattle in the real world. I never pulled more calves, fed more hay, or lost more money than when I had those genetics so don't tell me I don't know what I am talkin about. What gets my crawl is the shorthorn breed sits in a a pretty good position right now but people like SULL with there BS epd's and ages on their bulls will only hurt a guy like me tryin to do the right thing and breed cattle that really do hold up with out a feed bucket attached to their head and calve easy with a vigorous calf. I will bet you my farm in the next few years you won't see Mr Sull using ANY of the bulls he is now. Wonder why? I am saying this not to try and piss everyone off. I want everyone to be careful what they buy. When I was brand new I was the hog being led to the ham sandwich a few times and if I can help one person avoid that then it's worth it to me. I get sick and tired of people using the same thing OVER and OVER again. Shorthorn catalogs are like the Groundhog Day movie. Same thing again and again. Look around, try some new lines that are out there. Wonder why Sull just bought a truckload from Rob Sneed? My neighbor just calved a 117 lb heifer calf out of his Trump son that I discouraged him to get and now he says he is going to sell her next spring at a expo. Now I wonder what she will bring???? You think he will be happy with his investment? another neighbior of mine used shorthorns for 5 years. All Trump , Rodeo Drive, Solution , you get the idea. Know what he runs now? yep not Shorthorns nor will he ever again. He went back to Angus. So if I am sour on these lines maybe you can understand. I know them all to well thanks. Keep them to the show ring and lets not push these cattle in Denver to commercial cowboys PLEASE!
I learned a long time ago, that there are good cattle in every breed, and within every bloodline of any breed. I guess it drives me a little crazy when I see so many people making general comments about certain bloodlines and certain breeders when this just isn't the entire story. I think I run my cows very much like most commercial producers, in fact most commercial producers in my area, probably feed their cows better than I do. My cows live on hay and grass.
We make our living from our cows, so we have to raise something that we can sell. I cannot afford to put all my eggs in one basket, so I try to raise cattle that will work in different operations. That said, I insist on them being trouble free, low maintenance and efficient. I have used 3 Rodeo Drive sons over the years. They have all done a good job for me, and two of these were amongst the easiest calving sires ever used here. I buy cattle on their own merit, not just their pedigree, and I have made several mistakes over the years, but all in all, most have worked well.
Calf # 92 was just born a few minutes ago. Out of 92 calves, I have assisted 2... one a dead calf at the start of calving, and another that was a malpresentation. So far, all my heifers have calved on their own.I have not had to help a single calf to nurse, and it looks like the bags of dry colostrum I purchased before calving started may be stale dated again. I consider this to be a very good calving season so far. This has been accomplished with a variety of bloodlines in my cows and the sires used. This is why I say, you cannot say all cattle of a particular bloodline are bad. They simply are not!
I do not want to speak for Mr Sullivan, but I suspect he is purchasing cows with a specific plan in mind. He has purchased a number of cows recently, not only from Mr Sneed, but also from other producers, with different programs.He is expanding his operation, and it does my heart good to see someone actually expanding while most others are decreasing their cow herd numbers. I am expecting he is trying to diversify his bloodlines to meet a larger customer base. I applaud anyone who has the foresight to appreciate cattle for what they are, and breed them accordingly. I fully expect Mr Sullivan will blend the genetics from the cows he has recently purchased with some of the bloodlines that have worked for him in the past. This is what cattle breeders do, that is, use all the tools available to them, to try to build a better beast. I do not, for even a fleeting moment believe, that because Sullivan Farms has purchased cattle from other genetic basics, that this says that he is unhappy with the genetics he has produced previously. It expect it is the exact opposite. He is expanding his genetic base, and I expect in short order there will be cattle with the SULL prefix that are topping his sales that have blended genetics in their make- up.
I can site many examples of people who have had a bad experience with any breed. I talked with a commercial producer last night who said he had a wreck with an Angus bull he purchased. He also said he was running 10 herd bulls, and so far his one Shorthorn is the only bull who has produced all unassisted births. Again, he may have been lucky in his first Shorthorn bull purchase, but you cannot say that all Shorthorn bulls will sire calves that are born unassisted. Nor can you say that because he had a wreck with his Angus bull, that all Angus bulls will have calving issues. My point is that this is the same as saying all cattle that have Trump or Rodeo Drive or any other bull you can name in their pedigree are trouble waiting for a place to happen.
The fact that there are lots of the same bloodlines in sale catalogs is nothing new. It has been this way since time was. If you look back over the decades, there have been specific bloodlines that dominated for periods of time. In the 60s, almost everyone used a son or grandson of Bapton Constructor. In the 70s, the hot genetics were the Leader lines, and if you look back at breed magazines from that era, almost every ad listed a Leader descendant in their herd bull line up. In the 80s and early 90s, lots of Ayatollah and Lancer bloodlines were the " bloodline of choice". Later in the 90s the Rodeo Drives can into favor. Lately, it has been the Trump lines. This is nothing new. Right now, most everyone is trying to figure out where the next new genetics are going to come from. I think there are some great options available. I would only suggest that we try to keep our cattle useful, not only to the guy who feeds them, but also to the end user. Fads will come and go, but in the end, the only ones that matter, are the ones who make money for everyone down the line, from the cow calf man to the feeder, to the packer, to the consumer. If any one of these people in this chain doesn't like the product produced,or doesn't think they are getting value from their purchase, it is in trouble.
