Building shorthorns from commerical black cows

3 Eagles shorthorns · Feb 16, 2016

Being new the the shorthorn business and the fact that I have some really good black angus and Simmental cattle and a few salers. I was wondering if some of the great commerical females I have be used as a base for my shorthorns. Is it worth the money and time to do so? Or should replace them all with pb shorthorn cows?

shortybreeder · Feb 16, 2016

To get them to purebred status you'll need to get them up to 15/16, which is at least 4 generations (something like 10 years minimum) and could be even longer because black calves can't be registered above 50%. Unless they are some really special cows, I don't personally believe it's worth the time. I have one commercial cow that I keep thinking I want to breed up, but she is so good at raising calves that I've decided to use her as a recip instead. That way I can get purebred calves in 1 year, and she gives them a heck of a good start.

JTM · Feb 16, 2016

3 Eagles, this is a hard question to answer and only you can. I will give you my thoughts to ponder on. If your end goal is to have purebred Shorthorns and market purebred Shorthorn seedstock then I would be very selective of the genetics you get and make sure they are exactly what you want. If that is the route you take then find some cows or replacement heifers, buy them, and sell your other cattle. Now if it was me and what I know now, I would breed them up from the "good" cows that you have. Find Shorthorn bulls from programs you trust and that you know will make the cattle that you want and breed them up. You said yourself that you already have some really good cows so you definitely have something to build on. I guess the question is how badly to you want to jump immediately into the Shorthorn seedstock market? Keep in mind that Shorthorn will cross tremendously well with most anything and make great commercial crossbred cows. Hope my thoughts help. Sounds like you have a lot of fun ahead of you. Best of luck!

shortybreeder · Feb 16, 2016

JTM said:
3 Eagles, this is a hard question to answer and only you can. I will give you my thoughts to ponder on. If your end goal is to have purebred Shorthorns and market purebred Shorthorn seedstock then I would be very selective of the genetics you get and make sure they are exactly what you want. If that is the route you take then find some cows or replacement heifers, buy them, and sell your other cattle. Now if it was me and what I know now, I would breed them up from the "good" cows that you have. Find Shorthorn bulls from programs you trust and that you know will make the cattle that you want and breed them up. You said yourself that you already have some really good cows so you definitely have something to build on. I guess the question is how badly to you want to jump immediately into the Shorthorn seedstock market? Keep in mind that Shorthorn will cross tremendously well with most anything and make great commercial crossbred cows. Hope my thoughts help. Sounds like you have a lot of fun ahead of you. Best of luck!

Two very valid points. First off, make sure you know what kind of shorthorns you want to produce. Don't just jump right in with some shorthorns you found for a good deal. Do you want to produce the production type shorthorns, or the show type shorthorns? In a perfect world they'd be the same animals, but this is far from reality. Secondly, just crossing shorthorn onto the commercial cows you have will give you some great crossbred cows to work with and you could decide from there if it's a breed you want to pursue.
The main questions to ask yourself are, as JTM said, what is your end goal? And how long do you want to take to get there?

mbigelow · Feb 17, 2016

I think breeding up works well. If you want instant change the sell your cows and buy new ones. I would keep what you have and breed up especially if you like your cows.

3 Eagles shorthorns · Feb 17, 2016

I am looking to produce production type cattle. here in Montana, for the most part for calves to bring good market prices they have to be solid black,red,or white(char). I would be looking to sell solid red bulls at some point. I know I could produce some tremendous heifers out of the commerical cows I have when crossed with a shorthorn bull. There for awhile I was going to try Cabrera, but after visited the local rancher here a bit they said they would only be willing to try the solid red cattle or percentage black bull. Its 2a.m. Here and I just finished up with a first calf heifer so I apologize if this is hard to follow.

3 Eagles shorthorns · Feb 17, 2016

Always happy to see this.

mark tenenbaum · Feb 17, 2016

mbigelow said:
I think breeding up works well. If you want instant change the sell your cows and buy new ones. I would keep what you have and breed up especially if you like your cows.//// DITTO_said it better than I could. AS FOR A PROVEN COMMERCIAL BULL WHOSE SONS ARE USED IN MONTANA( and one of the few Shorts I know of in Montana that black cattle people use as 99.9999% of cattle there are black) Zane MartinPromised Land Cattle has him-and he won some big shows up there right out of the field.Hes pictured after breeding 50 cows or something. Hes probably the best all around Gold bred bull Ive seen, has great EPDS-and is used heavily on commercials-wanna sell red bulls-use him and or another RED one-(JTMS BULLS,Canadian deals etc) on this bulls hiefers O0

RyanChandler · Feb 17, 2016

I'd breed up your truly better cows and put embryos in the more common ones.

OH Breeder · Feb 17, 2016

-XBAR- said:
I'd breed up your truly better cows and put embryos in the more common ones.

This is to me is the most economical idea. Save your best momma's and produce half blood solid patterned bulls. I think many of the commercial producers (I know) don't care a whole lot about papers. They care more about performance. That's just my opinion.
You can purchase eggs of genetics you want to breed for and jump light years ahead with embryos-On a couple of your good mothers as recips.

Medium Rare · Feb 17, 2016

OH Breeder said:
-XBAR- said:

I'd breed up your truly better cows and put embryos in the more common ones.

Click to expand...

This is to me is the most economical idea. Save your best momma's and produce half blood solid patterned bulls. I think many of the commercial producers (I know) don't care a whole lot about papers. They care more about performance. That's just my opinion.
You can purchase eggs of genetics you want to breed for and jump light years ahead with embryos-On a couple of your good mothers as recips.

I'd agree. Embryos for retained heifers and cleaning up with a solid red shorthorn to sell F1s seems like the easiest transition.

Probably going to need to own the donor as well though. Unfortunately, you can't open very many sale catalogues and find the type of embryos I'm assuming he's looking for. Also needs to be able to control the sex of the embryos to speed up the process.

jaimiediamond · Feb 17, 2016

I am going to agree with the embryo program, you get the purebred calves year one. I wouldn't cut any cows out to breed up rather I would implant all and use an outstanding bull that really compliments where you want to go with your program to clean up. Any cow who isn't up to your standard I wouldn't bring into the recipient program. The half blood steers should sell well and you can retain the top heifers and grade them up if you so desire.

justintime · Feb 18, 2016

I think you can do both, that is breed your better Angus cows up to PB status and use embryos in the bottom half of your herd. When I had our Charolais herd, I got my foundation cows from a neighbor who had started with a very good Angus cow herd and used the best Charolais bulls he could find. He also had a very good AI program for many years, and when I bought his herd, he had been at this for over 20 years. The end result was a set of PB Charolais cows that were very unique in the Charolais breed. They were more moderate framed, easier fleshing, and superb uddered. Most of the year they looked white but there were a few of the PB Charolais cows that still had a grey tinge to their hide, when they shed out. It will take a long time and a lot of commitment to breed your herd up to PB status.

I also have done something similar in that a very good cow family in my herd, is bred up to PB status from a very good Simmental X Angus cow I had in the 70s. This really wasn't planned but got started when one of our herd sires decided to visit the pasture this half blood cow was in. We tried to abort the calf a few times as we were really wanting a 3/4 Simmental calf but she wanted to keep this baby and I finally decided I better let her have it. She had an incredible Shorthorn heifer calf and I kept her in my herd. I got really lucky as every female in the next generation produced a heifer calf early in her life so I was able to move up to PB status about as fast as it is possible. Some of the females from this line have been high sellers in some of our production sales.

Duncraggan · Feb 19, 2016

- - - - I am unfortunately a pedigree man and although I have, with good intentions, brought in other breed's genetics, including angus, brangus, bonsmara and simbra, when I have my sword in my hand to cull cattle, it often falls on the crossbred cattle!
        The biggest factor is temperament. They are all wild compared to Shorthorns!
        I like to get some pleasure out of breeding cattle and, after calving ease, temperament is the next biggest deterrent.
        You have had some excellent advice on this thread.
        My advice:[list type=decimal]
        Identify where you want to be
        Find a mentor
        Sell the lower third to buy Shorthorns that fit your identified programme and use them to ET to the middle third of your herd
        Breed up your best third of cows to see how they go
        Good luck with your programme!

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Building shorthorns from commerical black cows

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