Epinal

What experiences have some of you had with Epinal as a maternal sire?  I personally prefer the genetic kick from using the fullblood Maine bulls as opposed to most of today's popular Maine sires.  Would an Epinal son out of a good maternal Shorthon line be a viable option with the goal of raising replacement females?  I have had good results from the Cunia females I have had and my most productive cow family traces to a Dollar II cow I raised years ago.  I want to keep some performance in them along with eye appeal.  I also assume the resulting females would not be 1,000 pound cows, which is fine with me. 

I agree with you completely as far as liking the F1 fb maine on pb shorthorn.

I have some experience with Epinal, mostly on angus cows, but to compare him to Cunia for reference, I would say they tended to be a little bigger, a little stouter, a littler courser, less consistent phenotypically, and WAY snottier. If you have the semen you could well be pleased with the results, I know I would sure use it.

a better choice might be:


http://maine-anjou.org/pagedisplay.php?id=351429

contact znt for info

univers is in pedigree and he is not pha tested.

knabe said:

a better choice might be:


http://maine-anjou.org/pagedisplay.php?id=351429

contact znt for info

univers is in pedigree and he is not pha tested.

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So the dam is a double bred Cunia, so would FCC EPINAL 240C be free of genetic defects or is there no way of knowing?

No way of knowing.  Personally these defects don't bother me.  All these defects will be found in short order.

It's a great time to be a breeder, especially one who is preserving diversity and screening for what has been removed by reviving the older genetics.

There's NOTHING to be afraid of from these defects.  Soon, it will be way easy and cheap to super ovulate 10 cows, fertilize with one unit of semen, screen the embryos for defects and markers of interest.  Why worry about all background noise?

knabe said:

No way of knowing.  Personally these defects don't bother me.  All these defects will be found in short order.

It's a great time to be a breeder, especially one who is preserving diversity and screening for what has been removed by reviving the older genetics.

There's NOTHING to be afraid of from these defects.  Soon, it will be way easy and cheap to super ovulate 10 cows, fertilize with one unit of semen, screen the embryos for defects and markers of interest.  Why worry about all background noise?

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True enough, and once that defect panel you spoke of is available it will make the whole process so much easier. (I know send in samples as well if you have them!)

FCC Epinal 240C, in my opinion was as complete as any Fullblood Maine bull. His females were phenotypically awesome to look at and were very good calf raising mommas. He was clean in his bone and moderate in type and very much a calving ease bull. He was not the thickess boy on the block but designed quite well . Athletic and flexible on the move. Jerry Gibson owned him and Calvin Fryer was the breeder. Will try and find pics of his daughters.

We still have some Epinal in the tank. When I find the right set of Angus cows to breed him to I'm gonna use him and hope for females. I don't think he will out do Cunia but I think he will make some good useful females. The few calves we had out of him were all bulls we cut for show steers. They were a little on the smaller side but were thick and pretty profiling.

Telos said:

FCC Epinal 240C, in my opinion was as complete as any Fullblood Maine bull. His females were phenotypically awesome to look at and were very good calf raising mommas. He was clean in his bone and moderate in type and very much a calving ease bull. He was not the thickess boy on the block but designed quite well . Athletic and flexible on the move. Jerry Gibson owned him and Calvin Fryer was the breeder. Will try and find pics of his daughters.

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4J Family Cattle continues to use Epinal 240C quite a bit.  We did breed some heifers to him this spring, and flushed and Angus cow to him last fall.

Here's a link to 4J's Fullblood page.  It contains pictures of Epinal 240C and our latest herd sire, DSMA Quigley.  Quigley sired the the Grand Bull, Grand Femail, and Champion Get-of-Sire at the 2011 Ft. Worth Stock Fullblood Maine Show.  And below are pics of two young Quigley calves that we are getting ready for this years National Show.  The first is a May bull calf, and the second is a June heifer calf.

http://www.4jfamilycattle.com/p/fullbloods.html

Wow, for fullbloods those calves are very impressive. I like.

znt, I really like your bull calf.

Doc said:

znt, I really like your bull calf.

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Thank you.  I personally think he is better than the one we won the fullblood show with last year, but age is probably going to get us this year.  Really hard to win with a young calf, but his is still going to make one tremendous herd sire for someone, or possible A.I. sire.

MCC said:

We still have some Epinal in the tank. When I find the right set of Angus cows to breed him to I'm gonna use him and hope for females. I don't think he will out do Cunia but I think he will make some good useful females. The few calves we had out of him were all bulls we cut for show steers. They were a little on the smaller side but were thick and pretty profiling.

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did you ever use the epinal?