KCF Bulls

[Deleted]

Anyone here purchase or owned/used a Knoll Crest Farms bull lately that has some opinions on how their purchase turned out? Starting to do some homework for our next herd bull purchase and they are one of the sales this winter we'll likely look at for possibilities.  They have some bloodlines we either are currently using in some form of with AI or have interest in using and the thing that really intrigues us to is they have been doing a lot of DNA testing which would be a plus to purchase a homozygous polled bull.  Our last bull was polled but sired by a horned bull so when he was matched up with certain cows with a horn gene in her pedigree it was about 50/50 if we'd get a polled or horned calf.  Don't mind having some horned genes in our pedigrees somewhere, just prefer not to have horned calves when we're a polled herd.

Any other Polled sales this winter someone might recommend?  Rausch and SHF are 2 we'll look at but KCF is in December before a lot of sales so its one where you have to decide if you really like something or wait and take your chances on another sale later.  Main criteria we have is has to be good calving ease bull because we're small enough we don't have a bull just for cleanup on heifers so he's going to be doing cleanup on all types of females in the herd.  Trying to put a little more spring of rib and thickness into our females too while not sacrificing maternal milk and growth traits, our focus is breeding for replacement females and bull prospects and sell off the remaining as feeder calves.

[shumakerherefords]

I bought KCF BENNETT FOREMOST Y79 in the spring of 2012 www.shumakerherefords.com/smkcfy79.html and am very pleased with his calves. I couldn't get away to go to the sale so asked Bryce Schuman to check him out before the sale. Y79 traces back to Foremost which was an AI son of Feltons Sounder 957 bred by Joe Ellis in Illinois. He brings in some genetics (774 & 3008) that I never had the chance to use. The real plus is that he is homozygous polled.

As far as other sales, you might check with Tom Luthy to see what he has for sale next spring. He is using TFL U208 TESTED X651 ET who topped the marbling in the last NRSP test at Olsens.

[elkwc]

Not sure what area you are looking at or what bloodlines you are looking for. From the somewhat limited search I've done so far Barber's cattle have stood out although I haven't seen their herd recently I've seen progeny from their bulls. I've seen some Kevin Jensen bulls that have performed well in a cake and grass operation. The cattle from both breeders that I've seen have been structurally sound and have above average muscling. The Barber sale is in October I think. And it is down in Texas. They should have videos up soon. The Barber cattle I've seen have good spring of rib and the most natural thickness I've seen in Polled Herefords. Also the cows I've seen out of their bloodlines are good uddered and top producers. I noticed some lower BW in their sale bulls last year. I've seen a few other real good polled bulls.

[Deleted]

Distance is not necessarily a deal breaker, we've paid to ship bulls before. Kevin Jensen is actually a friend of ours, we've used his Logic bull AI before, have a couple cows with really nice udders from that bull so may have to use him again some time. Our herd is kind of a mixed bag of bloodlines but we only have about 20-25 females most years so we can only keep so many from 1 bull before making a change. Our herd sire the past 4 years is a Rausch Puckster bull, we bought some females from the Schu-Lar dispersal that have done very well for us and have some Feltons Boomer World Class and Revolution influence, Revolution being one we've breed AI quite a bit lately and have a son we kept semen interest on so another Revolution son is probably not practical.

The On Target bloodline is one we have interest in which is why KCF, SHF, and Rausch are 3 sales I mentioned who all have some of that but it's not necessarily what we have our mind set on either. That's the great thing about looking for new herd sires, give you a chance to look at everything with a fresh perspective.

[whiteface]

Is Hyalite On Target 936 homozygous polled? Have you seen much progeny? How does he compare to his sire On Target 22s?

I'm kind of looking for another polled bull to use AI that doesn't have lot of horned in the pedigree. Anyone use or think about using a homo polled other than Redeem and Revolution?

[Deleted]

Sept 23, 2014 11:02:56 GMT -6 whiteface said:

Is Hyalite On Target 936 homozygous polled? Have you seen much progeny? How does he compare to his sire On Target 22s?

I'm kind of looking for another polled bull to use AI that doesn't have lot of horned in the pedigree. Anyone use or think about using a homo polled other than Redeem and Revolution?

Topp Herefords and Ellis Farms are 2 more breeders I ought to add to the list...

whiteface: We had 3 AI calves by 936 this year.  One was a heifer out of a first calf Revolution daughter that we'll be keeping as a replacement and 2 bull calves, will know some more how they faired when we wean Oct. 4th and will try to get some pictures if I can - the ones I have are a few months old now.  One of the bull calves is out of a 1st calf heifer that hasn't performed as well as we had hoped she would but he's not a dud by any means and the other I would guess is going to be in the top 3 WW ratio for our bull calves.  Lot of butt on him but wish he was a little better made up through the shoulders.  Pretty sure a Revolution heifer and bull will be our top ratio calves, the heifer is hands down the best looking calf in the bunch but the bull is probably getting cut since he was 94lb at birth which is over our cutoff ceiling of 90lbs.  Small sample size for us but know a breeder who used a 936 son as cleanup the past few years that really liked his calves.  Seems like every sale I've seen 936 calves on they've sold very well.  Neither 936 or 22S are homo polled though.  Another breeder in our state bought the 2nd highest selling bull on the Rausch sale for $9000 this year which was a 936 son and the 6th highest selling bull on the SHF sale which was a York son at $12,000 so may have to pay him a visit next year to see how the calves out of those bulls turned out.

Curious to see what our SHF York calves will look like next year, he's homo polled.  EFBEEF Foremost and EFBEEF TFL U208 TESTED X651 are a homo polled bulls.  I remember I posted in one of Glenn's posts awhile back, he mentioned there weren't many homo polled bulls so I did a search on the AHA website with homo polled as the criteria and a lot more come up than you would think.  27 if you narrow it down to listed in the sire summary and there are at least 75 homo polled bulls permitted for AI use.  Should see more available for AI in the coming years with more people DNA testing, those numbers aren't counting all the bulls sold or retained for natural use, 272 males come up when I searched.

[picketwire]

Been a long time since I have visited with Paul, goes back to Oxley's dispersion in fact (boy time flies) but always enjoyed visiting and talking cows.

[whiteface]

Thanks for your info SPH! I'll have to do a search on the AHA website. I'm looking for a proven homo polled bull. I don't want to use 719T. Great for heifers but I'm not sold on his performance for my area. I'm pretty heavy on Redeem and Revolution so I thought i'd try another polled bull. The herd bull I have are good bulls with great pedigrees but are of mixed horned and polled genetics but if I can knock off horns I will. I know some breeders don't like the mixing of horned and polled but for me it has worked great and none of my commerical customers have complaints about a horn here or there in their herd. After all most have "mostly" Angus based cows. Even on my own black commericial herd, I bet I only have 1 out of 80 bwf that might have horns or scurrs.

I'm off topic here........ but has anyone AI'd a Charolais to a true F1 Baldy? I did this spring to about 10. LT Bluegrass was the sire. Kind of wondering if that will good or bad experiment!

[picketwire]

I'm off topic here........ but has anyone AI'd a Charolais to a true F1 Baldy? I did this spring to about 10. LT Bluegrass was the sire. Kind of wondering if that will good or bad experiment![/quote]


good choice, you will like them!

[candymeadowfarms]

Bluegrass has worked very well here! You should be pleased!