Fire Water for slick smokey steers

Does anyone have any experience with TC Fire Water?  I was intrigued by his photo but the video not so much.  He appears to be too round and too nervous.  I thought he may be a good choice for slick shear smokey steers but after seeing the video I am not so sure.

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He is IMHO one of the better bulls to hit the purebred Charolais market in awhile. His calves are good and from my experience they don't have any attitude problems. From what I have seen, not much of a problem with calves being round in their muscle expression either.

Modification: They are also pretty slick in general.

Thanks for the fast and helpful feedback.

He has got so much muscle he physically has to round a bit. He has an unbelievable track record, and I was impressed by the video. I have heard very good things on his offspring and used him on my best reg brangus cow last year. I had an outstanding bull calf. And for being an american he has an impressively square hip and above average hair. He also has done nothing but get better and better and thicker and thicker since he hit the ground.

If he is like most Charolais Show Champions over the years he will have great big birth weights, but with that said I will have some next fall out of Angus cows an reg. Charolais cows an can tell you then ... I also know the two breeders bought sons an put them on first calf heifers an had much trouble ...For the show steer people that use Heat Wave it proably won't matter to them .......

All the reports I have heard is that he is very moderate with birth wieghts, I would not try him on heifers or anything but they do come easily compared to most.

When I raised charolais cattle back some years ago, the breed had some problems with what was called double muscling. Does this problem still exhist today? Possibly one of you modern day breeders could enlighten me.

The full french cattle had more of the heavy muscling then the purebreds in North America have today. As far as calving goes, you still have to watch your EPDs but there are very easy calving Charolais bulls. Bluegrass for example will calf on anything. Others on smaller cattle you have to be careful with. Really the same as in any breed now - there are some cow killer Angus bulls in the country as well.

As for the Firewater calves - I have seen a few and they are impressive. I have also been very impressed with the D R Revelation calves. That bull is from Dismuke in California. He really moderates frame puts the pants on and throws lots of hair. I am not into the show steer business but crossing him with some solid black and red cows would give you something special I would guess.

He looked short strided in the video, but it's a video and he may walk better in person

Does anyone have pictures of his progeny?  Where can you get semen?

I know there are a few on Troy Thomas' website (I think) and also, Bovine Elite (the semen company) has a full page spread in their 2010 Semen Catalog.  I have some PB charolais...and from what I've heard around-the Firewater females are making splashes....BUT he is making some pretty up-in-coming sweet bull calves too.  Hope this helps!

Here are some FW hfrs and a bull. One hfr was supreme open and 4H at sd state fair. bull won the breeders cup in KC.

Thanks to all for feedback and to Jackpotcattle for the good photos.  The purebred progeny are sure nice.  I would like to use him on some simangus cows.  I bet he will add some muscle for sure.

The picture from the royal brought to my memory that the top seller at the sale out there was a Firewater. I think she sold somewhere in the $50,000 range if I remember correctly.

TR Fire water is an impressive bull and he works being able to produce practical performance oriented cattle and show winners.  The firewater line and the SVY Freedom line have been dominating the showring recently.  If you like Fire Water then you owe it to yourself to use a Freedom son like Montezuma.  Freedom calves have good hair, good muscle and plenty of style.
Neither bloodline is a a true power package in my opinion.  I have seen Fire Water, Freedom, Revelation, and SVY Pilgrim calves all in the same pasture.
Revelation produced an outstanding individual for Dory Gerrard out of what  I think was a freedom cow.  If you want a revelation bull calf Gerrard has the best revelation calf out there. The rest of the Revelation calves did not live up to the quality of this individual however so he is not a bet the farm kind of bull.
For adding power and muscle along with consistent performance I like SVY Pilgrim.  He puts power performance, and good hair in one package. Not as showy as the Freedoms but more power.
I would also consider the sire of Freedom HFCC PLD Evolution for a clubby deal as he has the hair and muscle to make it work.

Mark H.

The best Revelations I saw was in the Alberta Fall Harvest Sale and it was not Gerrard's. All Dory had was Freedom calves and a big tall Pilgrim heifer. The same guys had a bull calf on display there as well and he was awesome. They sold him out of the stall from what I heard. The heifer calf was the high seller in the sale. I would not say that the Revelations were not that impressive, the few I saw were pretty dam good. Ill try and find the sale book to see who had those Revelations. I dont think they were in Agribition though.

Freedoms are show cattle. Good for one cross on the big tall lanky cows but do not have the performance or guts a lot of guys want or need in their bull pen. Pilgrim is alright, crosses well on those little Freedoms to bring back some power but they are soggier cattle. There are better Rio Blanco sons in the industry then Pilgrim.

SJC,

I agree that a few Rio Blanco sons are as good or have the potential to be better bulls.  (By the way Pilgrim is a Rio Blanco Grand son.) The main reason I mentioned Pilgrim is that we puts power and muscle along with performance in along with easy semen availability.  For the average guy on this website justifying purchasing a share or a proven bull to breed a few cows is beyond reach.   
I  like some of the bulls Sparrows have (along with some others) but they are syndicated or not available to people on this site.
I also agree with you that Freedoms are primarily show cattle and do not have the performance punch that I like.  However this is a show cattle website and as such people here would consider using a freedom based on show record alone.  I would put revelation in this group as well from the calves I saw.  .  I would appreciate a link to the sale catalogs that show the revelation calves.  I still would like to see him used on more different types of cows as the calves I saw were inconsistent in regards to muscle and performance.
I also would appreciate your opinion on what Charolais bulls would work in the clubby deal that are not already mentioned ad nausem and have acceptable calving ease for heifers or maybe cows?

Mark.

I am new so I am just getting use to the conversations on here and am learning it is more about the Show Steer industry and less about the raising of beef.  Being a commercial cattleman myself I tend to not worry to much about the show ring. But I am pretty up on the Charolais industry in Canada. I need and am looking for the pounds and performance from my Charolais bulls not the show ring stuff. I had a Freedom from Dory for one year and I shipped him. My red angus heifer bull had more performance. Maybe it was just a bad bull so i shouldnt be so hard on Freedom (there are lots around) but i dislike the bull.

It was a Transcon Sale that I was referring too in Olds the middle of November. But I got a card from the breeder of those calves and it has a website link on it. I checked it out and it looks like they have some updated photos and a few more heifer calves which they did not sell and of course didnt bring to the sale. The website is www.circlecee.com and I think the calves were on the Show page. When I discussed the Revelation bull calf with the guys, they told me they had a deal pending. He was an absolute tank - I would have loved to own him. He was certainly the talk of the barn. It was an awful day for a sale and it hurt the prices but the Revelation heifer calf they sold still brought $4500. The guy did say that he was a new outcross pedigree to Canada and they bred him to their big cows. He said he from what he heard if you used him on the smaller framed, lower performance cattle (freedoms) that cross probably wouldnt work well as he didnt have the performance of some of the other herdsires they used. Nice guys, I am going to check out their bull pen in the New Year. I dont know if you know about the leptin gene - but these guys own alot of bulls who are TT. I think that is something I need to get into a little more.

Watch the Sparrow bulls. He has a barn burner of a sale every year but my experience is he has a really pretty set of cows and uses some pretty rough Cobb bulls and such on them. The resulting bulls are pretty nice to look at but they dont seem to breed true. i am sure some are better then others. I had a son of Sanchez and he just didnt have a consistent group of calves at all. Some really good steers, some average steers and just as many below average steers. Everyone in Canada in the breed used him but know no one does - nothing at any sale or show this year I saw. I like the Fargo bull Wells bought from South Dakota. But I didnt see any calves this fall from him either and there was a few big breeders who used him.

As far as the Show Steer deal - probably not the best guy to ask. All I know is I get paid by the pound and my silver calves this fall made me money.

SJC,

The freedom cattle are not performance cattle not by a long shot.  They have to be crossed with higher EPD cattle to keep their performance.  I find that LT bluegrass is much the same with not much growth and I feel is over rated for calving ease.  A very well promoted bull but easier calving bulls exist.
I am primarily a performance oriented guy myself and like the functionality of Rawes Ranches cattle.  John Rawes has some very high performance cattle (HRR ARDENS 8M) he raised and some of the most consistent calving ease Charolais bulls around. He does not show but and has a $3,656 average on two year olds at his bull sale.  They are posting their catalog for their upcoming bull sale in mid January: http://www.rawesranches.com/bull_sale/ .  Note he puts a REA/CWT on all the bulls as well.  Noticed he uses ABC breeding but with no Spawow's Madrid birth weights.  This guy is the breeder I would most like to emulate.
Another power bblood line to look at is Impair.  Good performance from some of his sons.
Fargo is likely the best calf Sparrows has produced in some time and he has been tied up by Wells and LT in the states.  In California Madrid is being promoted with Revelation in California.  The average Angus cross cow around here is at most 1200 LBS and could not handle either bull.  Bulls from Pleasant Dawn would work well here-if you could get the average guy to pay more than $ 1,500 for a bull.
Where are you from?  I am from Bowden originally.  Where are you at?

Mark

For those of you that like Firewater I believe that Smoke on the Water has been overlooked in the Firewater frenzy.  We used Smoke last fall of a few PB and have been very pleased with the calves.  He does tend to reproduce to the cow.  If the cow is soggy  the calf is soggy.  If the cow is smooth but maybe not quite enough guts the calf will be very smooth very pretty and could use alittle more in the lower third of the body. JMO  on a few head we used him on.  We like the calves well enough that we went back to him this fall.

Also used a lLITTLE of the Hamms Mogo bull on some spring calvers.  Will see in a few months how that turns out for us.  Really like the bull in person.  Biggest drawback as far as we are concerned before any calves hit the ground is that he is horned.  For some of you that have followed the breed we are going back and using Prime Cut.  The Prime Cut daughters that we have have never missed on producing a better than average to a really good calf no matter what we have bred them to.  Milk, longevity and good footed.