HA Cowboy Up 5405

Looking at some power and performance Angus bulls for a flush mating. Love the performance and phenotype of HA Cowboy Up 5405, but I'm a bit scared by his actual 99 lb. birth weight. I see that his CED is +8, but we we've seen some outliers in our herd pop up with calving ease sires before. His +1.8 BW is not out of line, but combined with his 99 lb. actual birth weight makes me wonder how many 100+ pound calves he may produce.

Has anybody seen calves out of him? How big are they coming and does he transmit his phenotype consistently? He's only two years old, so I'm guessing there haven't been too many herds who have used him yet.

I know it is wise to use proven genetics, but we've had our most success marketing breeding stock with pedigrees on the leading edge. I just don't want to be on the bleeding edge.  <cowboy>

HA Cowboy Up 5405 is a spread/performance bull with some power bull characteristics.  He looks like an excellent prospect that fits in the mold of the big Birth Weight Yearling Weight EPD spread bulls. That said he is one of the most well promoted bulls of any breed today and his sale price was hyped to the extreme.  His first claves are just coming now.  His EPDs are genomically enhanced so his accuracies look like he has a few calves with recorded data even though he doesn't.
For true power Young Dale Xcalibur 32X or one of his son offer a similar package:http://www.richmondranch.com/sires/young-dale-believe-ydf-46b/

Thanks Mark! No doubt that some bulls are marketed harder than others and I see what you are saying with Cowboy Up.

I also like what you are saying about Xcalibur 32X. Frey Angus Ranch's top two bulls on his February sale were both out of Xcaliber 32X too. I will have to keep him in mind. Do you like him or his son Young Dale Believe YDF 46B bull better? Looks like Believe 46B is a little lighter on BW, better Milk numbers, and matches a little better on marbling with my herd. Any thoughts?

I think you have a good understanding of how Xcaliber and Believe work.  Believe is an easier calving version of Xcaliber with plenty of improvements on the maternal side.Believe may give up some muscle expression.  If you can tolerate the birth weight I would try Xcaliber on a few cows that put out light birth weight.  On the average believe is the better bull and worth using. However, in my opinion like all good herdsires Xcaliber is producing sons better than he is;  the sign of a good herdsire.

we added this bull in!  excited to see his calves! 

I am very familiar with cowboy up and even more familiar with his sire. I clipped cowboy up for the hinman sale. I am neighbors with Arntzen's who owned the HA outside bull, cowboy ups site. The outside bull will consistently site calves in the 90 lb range with some 100lb also. However they pull very few of them, they are long, thick made calves. Dave hinman used cowboy up on heifers and didn't have any Trouble, but he is the breeder. Cowboy up was the most performance oriented bull I have clipped on a long time, and I clip about 5000 sale bulls a year. I wouldn't be scared of his birth weight, I actually believe he is what the breed needs, we are getting way to small on the birthweight in the angus breed. He will an intriguing bull to watch. Krebs bought an outside from Todd Foran that could've even better, just not promoted as much. He also had actual birth of 97

trouble3412 said:

I wouldn't be scared of his birth weight, I actually believe he is what the breed needs, we are getting way to small on the birthweight in the angus breed.

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Truth.

I have fed those 65-75lb birth weight Angus. I understand why the Angus breed is looking for LBW HWW bulls.

i had a cowboy up heifer calf born in June and she was about 75 pounds and has really taking off growing the past couple months looks to be structurally sound and going to be thivk 

We just had our first HA Cowboy Up calf last week. He was born unassisted at 82 lbs. Got right up and started sucking. He's growing like a weed and we are really impressed with him. His mother is a baldy Simmental out of Ruby's Wide Open. We plan to use Cowboy up on a few Simmental cows again this year!

We have tested him lightly.  Have a heifer calf (88 lb.) out of a cow whose cow family typically has larger BW, so I am happy.  The heifer is a standout.  Hoping she will continue to develop into a nice heifer. Also had a bull calf (78 lb.) from a more calving ease cow family.  It seems he follows the cows with my small calf crop.  NICE CALVES!