FIREWATER HERD SIRE PROSPECT ----

A March FIREWATER X LT UNLIMITED EASE ----THIS fIREWATER  prospect is very clean made compared to some of the sons and has very smooth movement & travel  ....Started out as 75.5  birth weight ,might not be as thick made as some of his half brothers ,but has
big  squaree  hip and is not roundmade in his muscle .....  Doing very well on test ,proably don't quite have the growth  our Progress calves do but they have a little more birth weight than he has .....

I like him.  (clapping)

Nice bull..  I have a question though.  As a Charolais breeder, what role does a low birthweight (I have to assume limited growth accompanies this) terminal sire have?

Nice bull Freddy! He's sure bred right knowing firewater and the backgrounds of the cattle on your place, send him down to someone in texas and tell them to take the nuts of a son of his and let me show the calf!

TO XBAR -BEEN in the Charolais for over 50 years and terminal in breeding cattle has never been in my program or vocabulary and as far as being used in the Charolais breed really___s me  off... With this term being used  it surprises me that those breeders that practiced that most are not in business any more ...Very poor terrm to use, because good females make a good breed and thats hard to have if you breed poor functioning cattle  IMO ----

Nice bull Freddy!

Freddy said:

TO XBAR -BEEN in the Charolais for over 50 years and terminal in breeding cattle has never been in my program or vocabulary and as far as being used in the Charolais breed really___s me  off... With this term being used  it surprises me that those breeders that practiced that most are not in business any more ...Very poor terrm to use, because good females make a good breed and thats hard to have if you breed poor functioning cattle  IMO ----

Click to expand...

WELL SAID!!!

Very nice bull Jamie. Will he be for sale or are you planning on keeping him?

I know this thread is evolving into something for which is was not intended but have to agree with Freddy's comment about this term "terminal".

Breeding good beef cattle is a balancing act for which everything comes together and benefits all segment of the beef industry. This includes and starts with the cow/calf producer.

IMO, "terminal" is a made-up in the USA word and it is a very inefficient way of producing beef.

Thanks to HF CHARS & TELOS for the support ,that word  used  in the Charolais breed for years has really irratated me and on the other hand paid no attention to it far as my program ......As far as the low  birth weight & high growth rate Angus and other breeds have been making this work .....
If you look at the trait leaders in Charolais EPD'S for Weaning and Yearling  there are a few bulls that have heifer calving ease and some of the top growth progeny on record....I'm very pleased to have a sire that sired one of these individuals ....It kinda messes up he formula for figureing some of these EPD'S
because the sire of one of these top bulls with record numbers is rated a  WW-12----YW-21 and his son has a WW-53---96----I'm  not complaining but it just shows how complicated it is to work with genetics and differeent matings .....

Freddy said:

Thanks to HF CHARS & TELOS for the support ,that word  used  in the Charolais breed for years has really irratated me and on the other hand paid no attention to it far as my program ......As far as the low  birth weight & high growth rate Angus and other breeds have been making this work .....
[size=10pt]If you look at the trait leaders in Charolais EPD'S for Weaning and Yearling  there are a few bulls that have heifer calving ease [/size] and some of the top growth progeny on record....I'm very pleased to have a sire that sired one of these individuals ....It kinda messes up he formula for figureing some of these EPD'S
because the sire of one of these top bulls with record numbers is rated a  WW-12----YW-21 and his son has a WW-53---96----I'm  not complaining but it just shows how complicated it is to work with genetics and differeent matings .....

Click to expand...

This is what I was getting at.  While there might be some rare exceptions, growth trait leaders generally lack maternal #s.  I'm a firm believer that maternal vs terminal characteristics are antagonistic by nature. While the Charolais breed follows the Angus trend of trying to be the jack of all trades, the Charolais breed (obviously in general terms) has added maternal characteristics and lowered mature cow weight AT THE EXPENSE of weaning weights and growth.  The Angus breed has done just the opposite focusing on yearling weight and epds at the expense of the maternal characteristics that put them on the map.  You now see per MARCs resents publishings, the avg Angus cow weight is now LARGER than the avg Charolais cow.  This is alarming to me and quite frankly I think its a shame.  The association needs to implent some type of direction as to put Chars back on the tract as the scale pounding TERMINAL breed to go to.  The breed to go to when WEANED POUNDS are your primary concern.  Accentuate the positives of the breed! Growth! Yield! Docility!  I think its important to remember that the jack of all trades is the master of none and when you try to have a balance instead of trying to specialize, you end up w/ and animal that's middle of the road and not especially good at either end of the spectrum.  Specializing is the MOST efficient way of producing beef cattle.  For the sake of the breed, a breed my family has been associated w/ since importing Bayard sons in the 60s, I strongly hope they will make a push back towards THEIR breed character and leave this jack of all trade mess for others to toy w/.

If you read your post you answered  the reason that Charolais don't need the type of cattle we use to have and need to excel in others ...CHANGE -the majority of the cow breeds that we use have jumped their size and growth by 200 lbs...  Your environment might be suited to those type of cattle more down
South more ,gotta use what works in your area, some of the cattle up North have to much hair for your area ..I have to agree when we had 900-1100 ib cows there was nothing more effecient than to use those type of cows and growthy Charolais bulls that calved easy .....We have more trouble with calving up North here than you people in the warm climate ...