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Post by ellettherefords on Aug 25, 2014 13:29:48 GMT -6
How many of you cull bull calves because of high birth weights. I saw some the other day and out of 6 bulls the lowest was 96 pounds the high being 112. How much emphasis do you guys put on that number.
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Post by Glenn on Aug 25, 2014 16:13:13 GMT -6
I do watch birthweights but do not have a line in the sand like many here do. I believe birthweights are 80% environmental and feed related and 20% genetics (roughly). I'm more interested in the cows history. If she has had 5 calves at a 98% ratio and all of a sudden has a 95# that is a a ratio of 106 then I look at the bull, if the bull has a good history then I usually figure it has to do with maybe a weather related gestation period or feed or extended cold snap toward end of pregnancy. Lots of factors. I wouldn't advise a buyer to use a 95# bull on heifers but if he was out of a good cow family without big bw issues and out of a bull I trusted I wouldn't automatically cut him.
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Post by elkwc on Aug 25, 2014 17:12:29 GMT -6
I will consider a bull with higher BW's if I plan on using him on mature cows. But if I'm going to use him on heifers then I pay a lot of attention to it. I don't want a bull who had an actual weight over the low 70's and preferably in the 60's. Also a longer muscled bull with a greyhound look usually seems to throw calves that will result in an easier birth. But on mature cows I don't worry much about BW's unless I see BW's like the early simmentals around here threw.
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Post by hoekland on Aug 26, 2014 0:09:34 GMT -6
Who would want to use a bull with a greyhound look?
Bulls aren't born expressing secondary sexual traits, they aren't born with horns, a crest, bulging masculine shoulders, a heavy front end and 40+ cm sack, that develope after puberty. There are enough good bulls with acceptable BW not to multiply the greyhounds.
Back to the original question I have a cut off at 42 kg, anything over that gets a band at birth.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2014 7:31:13 GMT -6
90lbs is our usual cutoff. Majority of our customers want bulls that are OK to use on heifers and breeding for calving ease is one of our top goals so anything over that usually gets the knife after weaning. Case in point, we have a pretty solid bull calf in the pasture right now that may end up being our top ratio bull at weaning but he was 94 at birth. Hate to cut bulls that look good but based on past experiences with the breeders in our area he'd probably be the toughest sell with the other likely sale bulls we'll feed out that weighed in the lower 80's. Maybe someone will buy him for a show steer. All about knowing your customer base. Some guys might find 94 BW OK while others wouldn't risk using a bull like that so what sells for 1 guy may not sell for another.
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Post by George on Aug 26, 2014 13:56:09 GMT -6
How many of you cull bull calves because of high birth weights. I saw some the other day and out of 6 bulls the lowest was 96 pounds the high being 112. How much emphasis do you guys put on that number. I think I must have looked at the same group of bulls that you did. I told the guy promoting them that no one could run fast enough to sell me a bull prospect that had a 112 pound actual birth weight. |
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Post by elkwc on Aug 26, 2014 16:42:45 GMT -6
Who would want to use a bull with a greyhound look? Bulls aren't born expressing secondary sexual traits, they aren't born with horns, a crest, bulging masculine shoulders, a heavy front end and 40+ cm sack, that develope after puberty. There are enough good bulls with acceptable BW not to multiply the greyhounds. Back to the original question I have a cut off at 42 kg, anything over that gets a band at birth. In our operation a heifer needs to calve on her own with little or no assistance. Currenty I'm not able to monitor them like I have in the past when I calved heifers. Again this year has proven what I knew before. We lost two calves and one heifer out of ten heifers that calved. Some bulls sire calves that are born with bigger bone,larger heads. larger hips and shoulders than others along with higher BW's. I talked to a very well respected Hereford breeder in his mid 80's this spring. He stated he had tried a lot of the low BW bulls ect. That low BW helped but in the end using a bull of low quaility with lighter muscling and bone was the best route he had found. I'm also reminded of what another very wise Herford breeder told me in the 60's. That a dead calf never gains a pound and a dead heifer never weans a calf. So I'm less critical about quality when I breed a heifer. The heifers we will calve starting in Jan. are bred to two correiente bulls because we didn't have what we felt was a heifer bull and we know even if the calf is backwards the heifers will likely have them on their own. We will wean the calves around 300# and rebreed them to a good quality bull. If I find a suitable either angus or hereford bull before next spring we will use him on heifers if not we will use the corriente bulls again. When I was a kid I remember one the largest ranches in NM for years always bred their heifers to Jersey bulls. They had what some considered the best commercial Hereford herd in NM. Again we each have to use what we have found works for us. In my case it is a low BW bull and with a longer muscle type. I would like to try a Sensation son. When I find one they have either done sold or too expensive for a commercial breeder. They have quality, low BW and from everyone I have talked to extreme calving ease. Again back to the original question like I stated before BW up to 100 pounds don't bother me if I'm using them on mature cows. Even a little over. 112 would likely be too much. Unless I bought him to use on select large cows. Again like Glen stated the environment and management styles influence bw's a lot. |
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Post by strojanherefords on Aug 27, 2014 19:42:19 GMT -6
Cows are three-quarters responsible for the genetics that predispose calf vigor and calving problems i.e. a cow that has calving issues would have difficulty calving her flush brother. However, it is expensive and inconvenient to directly address the issue with the cow, so many breeders have taken shortcuts and are continually lowering birth weights. But low birth weights result in low calf vigor and in my area that is the larger issue. That being said I do not consider bulls with over a 100 pound birth weight because anything larger could cause problems for Angus type cows.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 20:42:30 GMT -6
How many of you cull heifer calves because of high birthweight?
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Post by bookcliff on Aug 28, 2014 21:34:30 GMT -6
90lbs is our usual cutoff. Majority of our customers want bulls that are OK to use on heifers and breeding for calving ease is one of our top goals so anything over that usually gets the knife after weaning. Case in point, we have a pretty solid bull calf in the pasture right now that may end up being our top ratio bull at weaning but he was 94 at birth. Hate to cut bulls that look good but based on past experiences with the breeders in our area he'd probably be the toughest sell with the other likely sale bulls we'll feed out that weighed in the lower 80's. Maybe someone will buy him for a show steer. All about knowing your customer base. Some guys might find 94 BW OK while others wouldn't risk using a bull like that so what sells for 1 guy may not sell for another. ditto |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2014 7:38:40 GMT -6
How many of you cull heifer calves because of high birthweight? If you consider them going to the commercial herd to be bred angus? I don't get to see much outa my own little world but I think I see this is an area that has gotten lots better say over the last 10 and definately 15 years. As good of cattle without the bw... Even tho I don't think it was a whole lot more than a perception issue. Don't know quite how to explain it but when I first started x breeding Hereford mothers I basically selected an angus bull with most emphasis on bw - the biggest bw without cow killer gene cause I always believed that there was no better predictor of growth than bw... Ie the higher the bw the heavier the calves in the fall. Now looking at some Hereford cattle I think alot of ground has been made up for in those regards... Call it somewhat bending that curve. |
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Post by strojanherefords on Aug 29, 2014 13:32:30 GMT -6
Could you elaborate on the cow killer gene?
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Post by bookcliff on Aug 29, 2014 23:40:59 GMT -6
Could you elaborate on the cow killer gene? AKA.......well I'll play nice and won't name names of the ones I've had first hand expereince with back years ago, but 125- 130+lbs outa cows is what Ace is referring too (and what some of dad's neighbors referred to Simmy bulls as back in the early to mid 70's, but what did they expect.... breeding 850 to 1000 lb hereford cows to em) still remeber the night some 25 years ago I jacked a 152 lb polled embryo calf outa a big 1600+ lb char X recip in the rain tied to balebed(embryos were from a feller who I will never ever do business with no way no how, or his son for that matter, after those embryos Joyce bought from em. should have had a zipper put in but vet couldn't get there for a couple of hours so i pulled it.she blew her uterus out shortly after, busted the uterine artery and bled to death right on the spot and the calf died a couple of days later. vet school said calves that big can't oxygenate their blood enough and pretty much always kick the bucket. and he wasn't overdue. smallest calf out that set of embryos was in the upper 120's. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2014 5:27:37 GMT -6
Nothing over 90 pounds is kept a bull...ever.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2014 6:52:20 GMT -6
Atleast you got a rain out of the deal tk.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 19:13:26 GMT -6
How many of you cull heifer calves because of high birthweight?
Little more flexible with heifer weights than with bulls because you can at least breed heavier birth weight females to light birth weight bulls and get a reasonable birth weight for a calf. If she was over 100lbs then probably would have concerns about keeping her but unlike bulls where 90 is our cutoff, if we have a good 95lb heifer we'd keep her and as long as she is productive and doesn't have heavy calves to the bulls we breed to then she won't get culled. Heavy birth weight bulls you don't have much choice but to breed them to larger mature cows and even then still have to be concerned with how the birth weights will be. Not something we have to worry too much about though, our cleanup bull has averaged 80lbs BW over 3 calf crops so we don't have too many calves that break 90lbs BW.
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